GIFT  OF 

Li     P    lr^r 


THE  HIDDEN  SIDE  OF 
CHRISTIAN  FESTIVALS 


THE  HIDDEN  SIDE  OF 
CHRISTIAN  FESTIVALS 

BY 

CHARLES  W.  LEADBEATER 

Regionary  Bishop  of 
The  Liberal  Catholic  Church  for  Australasia 


THE  ST.  ALBAN   PRESS 
Los  Angelas  :  London  :  Sydney 

1920 


CONTENTS 

PART   ONE 


Page 


J-    VAVTTWAU                                  •     « 

Introduction  : 

The    Church  7s    Year      

11 

Chapter  1  — 

Advent 

16 

Chapter  II  — 

Christmas 

27 

Chapter  Ill- 

New  Year's  Day 

6(5 

Chapter  IV— 

The  Epiphany 

81 

Chapter  V— 

The  Baptism  of  Our  Lord 

101 

Chapter  VI  — 

The   Transfiguration 

118 

Chapter  VII— 

Lent           

129 

Our    Attitude    Towards    Lent 

129 

The   Sundays   in  Lent 

144 

Refreshment  Sunday 

151 

Holy  Week      

154 

The  Services  in  Holy  Week 

164 

Palm    Sunday         

165 

Maundy  Thursday 

167 

Good  Friday 

168 

Holy  Saturday 

175 

Chapter  VIII— 

Easter        

179 

Chapter  IX— 

Ascension  Day     

190 

Chapter  X— 

Whitsun-Day        

193 

Chapter  XI— 

Trinity  Sunday 

204 

Chapter  XII  — 

Corpus  Christi 

215 

Chapter  XIII— 

Feasts  of  our  Lady 

229 

The  Mother  of  Jesus 

235 

The  Virgin  Matter     

242 

The   Feminine  Aspect  of  the  Deity 

246 

Chapter  XIV— 

The  Festival  of  the  Angels 

252 

The  Higher  Angels     

252 

The  Lower  Angels     .  . 

270 

46338^ 

Chapter  XV 


Chapter  XVI— 


Chapter  XVII— 
Chapter  XV1TI 


Page 
Festivals  of  the  Saints  ......     290 

Our  Attitude  Towards  the  Saints  .  .     290 
Patron  Saints  ......     299 

Brief  Notes  Upon  Some  of  the  Saints     305 
St.  Albau          .  .          ......     305 

St.  George        ........     311 

St.  Patrick       .  .          .  .....     319 

St.  Mark  ........      323 

All  Saints'  Day  .  .          ..          ..324 

All  Souls7  Day    ........     330 


PART   TWO 
of  Jipscral 


Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 


XIX— 

XX— 

XXI— 

XXII— 

XXIII— 

XXIV— 

XXV— 

XXVI— 

XXVII— 

XXVIII 


347 
355 
370 

384 
395 
402 
413 
419 
426 
441 


The   Faith   of   Our   Fathers 

Our  Attitude  Towards  Life 

The  Greatest  of  These 

Discernment 

Wisdom 

Self  -Dedication 

Perseverance        .  . 

Good   Works 

God  as  Light      ..          ..        . 

Forethought 

PART   THREE 

urtng  tfye  Pta 


Chapter  XXIX—  The  Truth  About  the  War      .  .         •  •  451 

Chapter  XXX  —     On  the  Anniversary    of  the    Outbreak 

of  War  ........  480 

Chapter  XXXI—  On  God's  Side     .  .          ......  487 

Chapter    XXXII—  The  Future         ........  493 

Index.  •  •  .  .  500 


FOREWORD 

These  notes  on  the  Church's  Year  were  originally 
intended  to  be  a  chapter  in  the  first  volume  of  this 
series,  The  Science  of  the  Sacraments.  It  was  found, 
however,  that  that  book  was  already  becoming  un- 
wieldy, and  that  there  was  more  to  be  said  about 
the  ecclesiastical  year  than  could  be  compressed  into 
a  single  chapter;  so  it  seemed  best  to  devote  a 
separate  volume  to  its  consideration.  This  has  also 
made  it  possible  to  add  to  it  a  few  miscellaneous 
addresses  on  points  of  importance. 

The  book  is  to  a  large  extent  the  reproduction 
of  a  series  of  sermons  given  for  the  instruction  of 
a  congregation  to  whose  members  the  ideas  con- 
tained in  it  were  novel.  Amid  much  pressure  of 
work  along  other  lines  I  have  not  had  leisure  to  weld 
these  into  a  continuous  treatise;  and  as  it  is  not 
probable  that  in  this  incarnation  I  shall  have  that 
leisure,  and  as  other  congregations  desire  informa- 
tion on  these  subjects,  it  seems  best  to  let  the  sermons 
go  forth  with  but  little  correction  or  addition. 
Occasional  repetitions  and  colloquialisms  will  no 
dou'bt  be  found  in  the  book,  therefore;  but  I  hope 
that  it  may  nevertheless  be  not  without  some  value 
to  students  of  liberal  Christianity,  and  indeed  of 
religion  in  general. 

C.W.L. 


$art  1 

THE   FESTIVALS 


INTRODUCTION 
THE  CHURCH'S  YEAR 

God  has  a  plan  for  man,  and  that  plan  is  evolu- 
tion. We  have  come  forth  from  Him,  and  to  Him 
we  are  to  return.  The  oriental  philosophers  tell  us 
that  we  are  on  the  nivritti  marga,  or  path  of  return, 
and  a  modern  poet  puts  the  same  idea  in  other 
words:  "All  the  aim  of  life  is  just  climbing  back 
to  God."  Christ's  Church  exists  solely  to  help  man- 
kind in  this  process,  and  she  has  many  ingenious 
methods  of  offering  that  help.  One  of  them  is  the 
arrangement  of  the  ecclesiastical  year,  which  differs 
somewhat  from  that  of  civil  life. 

Broadly  speaking,  it  divides  itself  into  two  parts, 
the  first  of  which  is  devoted  to  setting  before  us 
dramatically  the  various  stages  of  the  path  we  have 
to  tread,  and  the  second  to  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  what  has  been  taught.  Through  both  parts 
are  scattered  various  festivals,  each  of  which  is 
intended  to  remind  us  of  some  point  which  it  is 
useful  for  us  to  remember,  and  to  call  upon  us  to 
make  a  special  effort  in  connection  with  it;  and  to 
make  this  easier,  extra  outpourings  of  force  from 
the  higher  world  are  arranged  for  such  occasions. 
As  it  is  put  in  our  Liturgy :  ' '  The  first  portion  of 
the  Church's  year,  from  Advent  to  Whitsuntide,  is 
devoted  to  the  commemoration  of  the  various  scenes 
in  the  Mystery-Drama  of  the  life  of  the  Christ,  which 
in  itself  is  typical  of  the  life  of  every  Christian,  as 
Origen  pointed  put." 

11 


12  %>he  Christian  Festivals 

There  are  four  principal  stages  in  that  progress. 
Those  who  have  studied  these  things  from  another 
point  of  view  know  that  in  oriental  religions  those 
four  stages  are  called  the  four  great  Initiatipns. 
These  appear  in  Christianity  also,  but  the  terms  are 
different.  The  first  of  them  is  symbolized  by  the 
Birth  of  the  Christ — that  first  great  Initiation  which 
is  the  birth  of  the  man  into  the  great  White 
Brotherhood,  which  is  always  called  in  the  gospels 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  We  cannot  understand 
those  gospels,  we  cannot  make  coherent  or  reason- 
able sense  out  of  them,  if  we  take  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  mean  the  heaven-world  after  death.  If 
we  understand  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  a 
great  living  community,  we  shall  see  why  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  the  rich  man  to  enter  into  it;  we  shall  see 
how  all  the  promises  made  about  it  are  literally 
accurate;  otherwise  they  make  no  sense  at  all. 

In  that  first  Initiation  also  the  birth  of  the  Christ- 
Principle  takes  place  in  the  man,  for  the  Monad 
and  the  ego — the  spirit  and  the  soul,  to  use  the 
Christian  terms — become  one  for  a  wonderful 
moment. 

The  second  of  those  great  stages  is  symbolized  by 
the  Baptism  of  our  Lord.  We  must  not  confuse 
this  with  the  baptism  which  brings  every  child  into 
the  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  that  of  which  John  the 
Baptist  spoke  when  he  said:  "I  indeed  baptize  you 
with  water,  but  He  that  cometh  after  me  shall 
baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  Fire." 
There  is  an  outpouring  from  the  Initiator  to  the 
candidate  at  that  second  great  ceremony  which  has 
indeed  all  the  appearance  of  a  baptism  of  fire. 


&he  Church's  Year  13 

The  Transfiguration  is  the  representation  of  the 
third  of  these  great  Initiations,  for  in  that  truly  the 
Monad,  the  spirit,  transfigures  the  soul,  and  the  soul 
in  its  turn  transfigures  the  body  down  here — the 
personality,  as  we  often  call  it.  All  these  are  won- 
derfully apt  illustrations.  When  we  come  to  the 
fourth,  we  find  what  many  people  think  a  truly 
terrible  Initiation,  though  surely  it  is  also  one  of 
the  greatest  glory;  for  then  the  candidate  suffers 
what  is  imaged  by  the  Crucifixion,  though  if  he 
passes  the  test  successfully  it  is  always  followed  by 
the  victory  of  the  Resurrection. 

If  we  read  the  account  of  the  life  of  any  mystic 
who  has  passed  through  that  wonderful  stage  we 
shall  notice  how  closely  these  events  follow  one  an- 
other, and  how  truly  the  Christian  story  mirrors 
them.  We  shall  see  that  there  is  usually  some  small 
earthly  triumph  like  that  of  the  Christ  on  Palm 
Sunday,  and  after  that  there  is  always  the  com- 
bination of  enemies  to  disgrace  the  candidate;  there 
is  always  the  misunderstanding  and  the  contumely 
thrown  upon  him,  and  then  after  all  that  comes  the 
great  and  glorious  resurrection  out  of  that  suffer- 
ing into  life  eternal — eternal  as  regards  this  world 
at  any  rate,  for  the  man  who  has  taken  that  step 
need  never  again  be  reborn  here  on  earth. 

Then  after  that  comes  the  fifth  step — the  last  of 
all,  that  which  takes  the  man  out  of  humanity  and 
makes  him  a  superman.  That  is  aptly  symbolized 
by  the  Ascension  from  earth  to  heaven,  and  the 
downpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  comes  upon  him 
and  upon  others  in  consequence  of  that  his  ascent 
—all  truly  as  it  is  mirrored  in  the  gospel  story. 


14  &he  Christian  Festivals 

There  is  an  immense  amount  of  detail  into  which 
I  cannot  pretend  to  go  now;  but  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  symbolical  interpretation  is  at  least  coherent, 
reasonable  and  defensible.  There  is  no  argument 
against  it,  whereas  the  contention  that  the  account 
is  historical  can  be  overthrown  at  every  point; 
therefore  those  who  pin  their  faith  to  that  histori- 
cal idea  must  shut  their  eyes  to  a  vast  amount  of 
what  they  cannot  but  know  to  be  the  truth,  whereas 
those  who  are  prepared  to  accept  the  higher  and 
inner  meaning  will  find  that  their  faith  is  founded 
upon  a  rock. 

In  drawing  up  the  calendar  for  the  Liberal 
Catholic  Church  we  have  ventured  upon  a  slight  re- 
arrangement of  some  of  the  minor  festivals  in  order 
to  bring  forth  this  inner  meaning  somewhat  more 
clearly.  At  Christmas,  with  all  the  world,  we  cele- 
brate the  Birth  of  the  Christ.  There  is  no  special 
festival  appointed  in  the  ordinary  Catholic  calendar 
as  an  anniversary  of  the  Baptism  of  our  Lord, 
though  many  have  celebrated  it  along  with  the  Epi- 
phany. We  therefore  have  ventured  to  set  apart  an- 
other day  for  this  celebration,  somewhat  later  than 
the  Epiphany;  and  because  the  Transfiguration  (sym- 
bolizing the  third  Initiation)  comes  out  of  its  due 
place  when  kept  on  the  6th  August,  we  have  also 
transferred  that,  and  we  keep  it  between  the  Baptism 
(which  represents  the  second  Initiation)  and  Easter 
(which  represents  the  fourth).  So  once  more  these 
four  stages  will  be  restored  in  our  calendar  to  a 
coherent  whole,  and  put  in  the  right  Qrder. 

There  is  no  tradition  in  the  Church  as  to  the 
actual  anniversary  of  either  the  Baptism  or  the 


The  Church's  Year  15 

Transfiguration.  The  custom  of  celebrating  the 
latter  on  the  6th  August  was  introduced  at  a  com- 
paratively late  date;  I  think  the  first  time  we  find 
it  mentioned  is  in  the  year  850  A.D.,  and  even  then 
it  seems  to  have  been  only  locally  observed.  It  was 
not  until  the  year  1456  that  its  extension  to  the 
universal  Church  was  decreed  in  commemoration  of 
a  great  victory  gained  over  the  Turks  on  that  day. 
So  as  the  original  date  is  not  known,  we  have  not, 
I  think,  committed  any  great  breach  of  propriety 
in  putting  these  celebrations  in  their  true  order,  so 
that  the  symbolism  shall  be  clear  to  our  brethren. 

Many  of  the  events  described  as  having  hap- 
pened in  the  last  life  of  the  Christ  are  commemor- 
ated on  the  days  when  they  are  actually  supposed 
to  have  occurred,  although  on  this  subject  there  has 
been  in  ecclesiastical  history  considerable  difference 
of  opinion.  The  great  group  of  festivals  whose  dates 
are  determined  by  that  of  Easter  fall  on  different 
days  of  the  month  in  different  years;  but  they  are 
all  decided  with  reference  to  the  Paschal  full  moon, 
just  as  the  old  Jewish  Passover  used  to  be. 

The  other  group  of  festivals,  being  dependent 
upon  Christmas,  have  fixed  dates — the  Annunciation 
on  March  25th,  Christmas  Day  itself,  the  festival  of 
the  Epiphany  twelve  days  later,  and  the  Presenta- 
tion of  Christ  in  the  temple,  which  is  commonly 
called  Candlemas  Day.  There  is  little  reason  to 
suppose  that  any  of  these  dates  are  historically  cor- 
rect, but  they  are  arranged  to  be  consistent  one  with 
another. 


CHAPTER  I 
ADVENT 

With  us,  as  with  the  Churches  of  Rome  and  of 
England,  Advent  Sunday  is  what  may  be  called  the 
ecclesiastical  New  Year's  Day.  The  Holy  Eastern 
Church  (the  Church  of  Greece  and  of  Russia) 
observes  the  same  custom,  but  she  clings  to  the 
unrevised  calendar,  and  so  she  begins  all  her  com- 
memorations twelve  days  later  than  we  do. 

The  first  great  feast  of  the  Church's  year  is  that 
of  the  Birth  of  the  Christ,  which  corresponds  to, 
and  teaches  us  of,  the  first  of  the  great  Initiations. 
But  the  Church  in  her  wisdom  has  ordered  that  for 
each  of  her  greater  festivals  there  shall  be  a 
certain  time  of  preparation,  and  consequently  before 
the  feast  of  Christmas  we  have  the  season  of  Advent 
— which  has  indeed  a  double  aspect,  but  its  first  is 
that  of  a  time  of  preparation  for  the  due  celebration 
of  Christmas. 

It  is  not  a  mere  fashion  of  speech  to  say  that  we 
ought  during  the  season  of  Advent  to  be  making 
ourselves  ready  for  that  festival.  Christmas  is  not 
only  a  birthday,  not  only  a  commemoration  of  the 
nativity  of  our  Lord;  it  is  also  a  time  of  the  special 
outpouring  of  spiritual  force.  Such  great  festivals 
as  Easter  and  Christmas,  in  the  rejoicing  connected 
with  which  we  all  join  so  eagerly  when  they  come 
round,  are  definitely  occasions  for  what  is  commonly 
called  the  shedding  of  grace  from  on  high;  and  in 
order  that  we  may  be  able  to  avail  ourselves  to 
the  full  of  such  an  outpouring,  it  is  well  that  we 

16 


Advent  17 

should  take  advantage  of  the  season  of  adjustment. 
We  receive  more  if  we  prepare  ourselves  properly; 
so  we  should  accustom  ourselves  during  Advent  to 
think  daily  of  the  Coming  of  the  Lord,  and  of  the 
Initiation  which  it  typifies. 

The  four  Sundays  in  Advent  are  devoted  by  the 
mystics  of  the  Inner  School  of  Christianity  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  four  qualifications  for  the 
first  Initiation — Discrimination,  Desirelessness,  Good 
Conduct  and  Love;  but  no  trace  of  that  arrange- 
ment remains  in  the  modern  Church  services,  unless 
it  be  the  old  custom  of  substituting  rose  for  violet 
as  the  colour  for  the  third  Sunday.  As  is  explained 
in  our  Liturgy  (and  more  fully  in  the  first  book  of 
this  series,  The  Science  of  the  Sacraments)  the 
Church  utilizes  different  rates  of  vibration,  which 
show  themselves  to  our  eyes  as  colours,  to  assist  in 
impressing  upon  her  members  the  various  lessons  to 
be  learnt  successively  in  the  course  of  her  year.  In 
the  preparation-periods  (Advent,  Lent  and  the 
vigils  of  Saints'  Days)  the  colour  chosen  as  most 
helpful  is  purple,  because  of  its  actinic,  piercing  and 
cleansing  properties.  Approximately  in  the  middle 
of  Advent  and  of  Lent  we  find  a  Sunday  on  which 
rose  is  prescribed;  and  for  this  various  reasons  have 
been  suggested.  Through  certain  curious  misunder- 
standings these  preparatory  periods  came  to  be  con- 
sidered as  penitential  and  sorrowful,  and  it  was  sup- 
posed that  the  rose-coloured  Sunday  was  introduced 
as  a  kind  of  mitigation  of  grief — a  momentary  relief 
in  the  midst  of  austerities.  A  truer  theory  is  that, 
as  the  one  efficient  motive  for  our  attempt  at  self- 
purification  is  our  love  for  God,  this  dramatic 
change  of  colour  in  the  midst  of  the  season  is 


18  The  Christian  Festivals 

intended  to  remind  us  of  that  deep  and  true  affec- 
tion which  must  underlie  and  permeate  every  effort 
that  we  make,  if  there  is  to  be  any  hope  of  its  per- 
manent success.  At  least  this  much  remains  of  the 
joyousness  which  should  characterize  the  whole 
season;  for  it  is  not  by  fruitlessly  mourning  over 
our  sins,  but  by  earnestly  resolving  to  forsake  them, 
that  we  can  fit  ourselves  to  make  the  best  use  of 
the  glorious  festival  which  is  approaching. 

The  Church  Catholic  has  always  recognized  the 
dual  nature  of  the  Advent  season — that  it  is  a  pre- 
paration for  the  next  Coming  of  the  Christ,  as  well 
as  for  the  celebration  of  His  birth  in  His  last  life 
on  earth.  The  Churches  of  Rome  and  England 
speak  of  that  second  Coming,  and  adjure  their 
people  to  be  ready  for  it;  and  yet  there  is  a  vast 
amount  of  serious  misunderstanding  about  it.  In 
the  Christian  scriptures  it  is  entangled  with  the 
idea  of  the  end  of  the  world,  so  that  people  who 
look  for  the  second  Coming  of  the  Christ  generally 
think  of  it  as  also  the  end  of  all  the  order  that  they 
know,  and  so  most  of  them  fear  it.  In  the  sermons 
and  hymns  connected  with  the  Coming  there  still 
lingers  a  flavour  of  fearful  anticipation  of  an  awful 
descent  from  the  physical  sky,  acccompanied  by 
appalling  meteorological  phenomena.  The  general 
attitude  is  far  too  much  that  expressed  in  some  of 
the  Advent  hymns  which  such  people  sing: 
The  ungodly,  filled  with  guilty  fears, 

Behold  his  wrath  prevailing; 
In  woe  they  rise,  but  all  their  tears 
And  sighs  are  unavailing. 

And  they  talk  of  them  as  "deeply  wailing/'  "in 
deep  abasement  bending,"  and  so  on.  Now  it  should 


Advent  19 

be  very  clearly  understood  that  all  this  sort  of  thing 
is  not  only  silly,  but  definitely  wicked  and  blas- 
phemous; and  the  men  who  teach  such  a  horrible 
misrepresentation  of  true  Christian  doctrine  under- 
take a  very  serious  responsibility,  for  surely  to 
slander  our  heavenly  Father  and  to  degrade  His 
children's  conception  of  Him  is  a  crime  of  no  small 
magnitude.  There  is  of  course  nothing  whatever  of 
that  sort  among  true  mystics,  who  have  always 
known  that  God  is  Love,  and  have  never  feared  any 
manifestation  of  His  Presence,  for  they  know  that 
whether  they  see  Him  or  not  He  is  always  with 
them  even  unto  the  end  of  the  age. 

All  fear  of  God  comes  from  a  misunderstanding. 
The  Coming  of  Christ  is  indeed  connected  with  an 
end ;  it  is  not  the  end  of  the  world,  but  the  end  of 
an  age  or  dispensation.  The  Greek  word  is  aion, 
which  is  the  same  as  aeon  in  English;  and  just  as 
Christ  said  two  thousand  years  ago  that  the  dispen- 
sation of  the  Jewish  law  had  come  to  an  end — 
because  He  had  come  to  found  a  new  dispensation, 
that  of  the  gospel — so  will  the  gospel  dispensation 
come  to  an  end  when  He  comes  again  and  founds 
yet  another.  He  will  give  the  same  great  teaching: 
the  teaching  must  be  the  same,  for  there  is  only  one 
Truth,  though  perhaps  it  may  be  put  a  little  more 
clearly  for  us  now,  because  we  know  a  little  more. 
It  will  be  promulgated  in  some  fresh  dress,  per- 
haps, with  some  beauty  of  expression  which  will  be 
exactly  suited  to  us  in  this  present  day;  there  will 
be  some  statement  of  it  which  will  appeal  to  a  large 
number  of  people. 

It  will  certainly  be  the  same,  because  it  has  ap- 
peared in  all  the  existing  faiths.  They  have  differed 


20  &he  Christian  Festivals 

much,  in  their  method  of  presenting  it,  but  they  all 
agree  absolutely  in  the  life  which  they  ask  their 
followers  to  live.  We  find  considerable  difference 
between  the  external  teachings  of  Christianity, 
Buddhism,  Hinduism,  and  Muhammadanism ;  but  if 
we  examine  the  good  men  of  any  one  of  those  reli- 
gions and  enquire  into  their  daily  practice,  we  shall 
find  that  they  are  all  leading  precisely  the  same  life 
— that  they  all  agree  as  to  the  virtues  a  good  man 
must  possess,  and  they  all  agree  as  to  the  evils  he 
must  avoid.  They  all  tell  us  that  a  man  must  be 
charitable,  truthful,  kindly,  honourable,  helpful  to 
the  poor;  they  all  tell  us  that  a  man  who  is  hard 
and  grasping  and  cruel,  a  man  who  is  untruthful 
and  dishonourable,  is  making  no  progress  and  has 
no  chance  of  success  until  he  changes  his  ways.  As 
practical  people  we  must  recognize  that  the  things 
of  real  importance  in  any  religion  are  not  the  vague 
metaphysical  speculations  on  matters  of  which  no 
one  can  really  know  anything  for  certain,  for  these 
can  have  no  influence  upon  our  conduct ;  the  important 
things  are  the  precepts  which  affect  our  daily  lives, 
which  make  us  this  kind  of  man  or  that  kind  of 
man  in  our  relations  with  our  fellow-men.  Those 
precepts  are  the  same  in  all  existing  religions;  they 
will  be  the  same  in  the  new  teaching,  whatever  it 
may  be. 

Perhaps  we  may  go  a  little  further  than  that  in 
predicting  what  He  will  teach,  because  there  are 
some  other  avenues  of  information  open  to  us.  One 
of  these  is  the  study  of  the  previous  teachings  which 
He  has  given.  Students  will  remember  that  before 
this  World-Teacher  took  up  the  office  it  was  held  by 
the  Lord  Gautama,  Whom  men  call  the  Buddha.  His 


Advent  21 

especial  title  was  the  Lord  of  Wisdom.  He  gave 
many  teachings,  but  they  all  centred  round  the  idea 
that  knowledge  meant  salvation — that  the  evils  of 
the  world  came  from  ignorance,  and  that  through 
ignorance  men  were  led  into  desire,  and  by  that  into 
all  kinds  of  sins  and  sorrows;  but  that  if  the  igno- 
rance of  man  was  dispelled,  and  he  came  into  pos- 
session of  perfect  knowledge,  he  would  thereby  come 
to  the  perfect  life,  and  to  the  perfect  attitude  to- 
wards all  men  and  all  circumstances,  and  so  would 
escape  from  the  wheel  of  birth  and  death. 

Our  present  World-Teacher  bears  the  name 
Maitreya,  which  means  kindliness  or  compassion, 
and  just  as  the  Lord  Buddha  was  called  the  Lord  of 
Wisdom,  so  is  the  Lord  Maitreya  called  the  Lord  of 
Love  or  of  Compassion.  The  great  central  truth 
which  He  will  emphasize  is  that  the  evils  of  the 
world  come  from  the  lack  of  love  and  brotherliness 
— that  if  man  will  learn  to  love  and  to  adopt  the 
brotherly  attitude,  all  evil  will  pass  away  and  the 
golden  age  will  dawn  upon  us.  Not  immediately— 
we  cannot  hope  for  that;  but  at  least  men  will  begin 
to  see  for  themselves,  and  to  understand  how  much 
more  is  to  be  gained  along  that  line  than  the  other. 
We  may  see  how  prominently  that  doctrine  came 
forward  in  His  previous  lives. 

Twice  He  has  appeared — as  Krishna  in  the  Indian 
plains,  and  as  Christ  amid  the  hills  of  Palestine.  In. 
the  incarnation  as  Krishna  the  great  feature  was 
always  love;  the  child  Krishna  drew  round  Him 
people  who  felt  for  him  the  deepest,  the  most  intense 
affection.  Even  now  the  religion  which  He  founded 
perpetuates  itself  in  the  most  touching  devotion,  the 
most  wonderful  attraction  to  the  child  Krishna.  All 


22  &he  Christian  Festivals 

over  the  south  of  India  many  millions  of  followers 
still  worship  Him,  and  it  is  of  the  essence  of  their 
worship  to  feel  for  him  the  deepest  affection — a 
devotion  more  touching,  more  intense,  I  think,  than 
any  that  I  have  seen  even  in  the  monastic  communi- 
ties of  Christianity. 

Again  in  His  birth  in  Palestine,  love  was  the 
central  feature  of  His  teaching.  He  said:  "This 
new  commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love 
one  another  as  I  have  loved  you."  He  asked  that 
His  disciples  might  all  be  one  in  Him  even  as  He 
was  one  with  the  Father.  His  closest  disciple,  St. 
John,  insisted  most  strongly  upon  the  same  idea: 
"He  that  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God,  for  God  is 
love."  St.  John  lived  to  a  great  age  (over  a  hun- 
dred), and  when  in  the  days  of  extreme  old  age  and 
feebleness  he  could  no  longer  deliver  long  sermons, 
as  he  was  carried  about  in  a  chair  among  the  younger 
people,  his  word  to  them  always  was:  "Little 
children,  love  one  another."  So  we  have  some  evi- 
dence from  the  two  previous  births  of  the  great 
World-Teacher  that  the  central  idea  of  love  will 
dominate  His  utterances  now. 

In  a  certain  little  book  called  At  the  Feet  of  the 
Master  we  have  some  teaching  given  to  a  young 
Indian  pupil  (whom  I  knew  well)  by  one  of  the 
Masters  of  the  Wisdom  who  is  Himself  a  disciple  of 
the  World-Teacher.  Its  especial  object  is  to  set 
forth  in  the  simplest  possible  form  the  qualifications 
required  for  Initiation.  There  is  no  mystery  as  to 
those  qualifications,  for  they  are  given  in  books  be- 
longing to  various  religions,  and  are  well  known  to 
all  who  make  a  study  of  such  subjects.  In  these 
different  presentations,  however,  there  is  room  for 


Advent  23 

considerable  variety,  both  in  the  method  of  teaching 
and  in  the  translation  of  some  of  the  technical  terms 
employed.  In  this  little  book  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred we  get  the  presentation  of  those  qualifications 
by  one  who  is  so  close  a  follower  of  the  World- 
Teacher  that  we  may  feel  sure  that  it  is  practically 
His  presentation.  That  book  clearly  does  not  con- 
tain the  whole  of  what  He  will  teach,  but  we  may 
certainly  take  it  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  of  which 
He  disapproves.  In  reading  it  we  cannot  fail  to  be 
struck  by  the  fact  that  it  is  most  strongly  permeated 
with  this  same  spirit  of  love.  The  final  qualifica- 
tion, the  intense  desire  for  union  with  the  Supreme, 
is  given  in  that  book  as  Love,  on  the  ground  that  the 
Supreme  with  "Whom  the  man  wishes  to  be  one  is 
Himself  Love ;  and  therefore  he  who  wishes  to  join 
with  Him  must  first  develop  that  love  within  him- 
self. I  strongly  recommend  that  little  book  to  the 
notice  of  every  member  of  our  Church;  it  will  be 
found  in  many  ways  a  most  useful  manual,  for  it 
shows  us  clearly  in  how  many  ways  our  present 
methods  of  life  fall  far  short  of  that  high  ideal  of 
love. 

In  reading  the  Christian  bible  we  should,  I  think, 
remember  that  its  language  is  largely  symbolical. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  the  writers  knew 
exactly  what  it  meant.  I  do  not  think  they 
did.  I  think  they  also  were  in  many  cases  deceived, 
because  they  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Christ 
words  which  represent  Him  as  expecting  to  come 
back  quite  shortly.  Again  and  again  He  is  made  to 
state:  "There  are  many  standing  here  who  will  not 
pass  away  until  I  come  again,"  whereas  we  know 
that  two  thousand  years  have  passed  since  then. 


24  &he  Christian  Festivals 

That  idea  of  the  destruction  of  the  world  is  a 
mistake.  It  may  be  said:  "All  the  Christian  world 
takes  it  literally;  how  do  we  know  that  it  is  a  mis- 
take?" In  this  Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  worship 
and  we  follow  the  living  Christ.  Not  a  Christ  of 
two  thousand  years  ago  only,  but  a  Christ  Who  lives 
and  inspires  His  Church  now;  in  this  day  also  He 
has  His  prophets  who  know  and  declare  His  Will, 
and  those  who  know  have  told  us  that  He  will  come 
again  even  as  He  has  said,  and  that  that  Coming 
will  be  soon  now,  as  we  count  earthly  time.  It  will 
indeed  begin  a  new  era  for  those  who  are  willing 
to  receive  it.  It  will  be  a  great  change,  but  it  will 
be  a  mental  and  a  moral  change.  He  spoke,  in  that 
previous  visit  of  His,  of  the  signs  which  should 
foretell  His  second  Coming.  If  we  read  what  is 
written,  we  shall  see  that  the  great  war  has  been 
one  of  those  signs;  and  we  can  also  see  that  much 
will  be  possible  in  the  way  of  reconstruction  after 
it  which  would  not  have  been  practicable  before. 
Let  it  be  clearly  in  our  minds  that  He  comes  not 
to  destroy  the  world,  but  to  teach  us,  even  as  He 
came  before.  He  comes  to  reign  indeed,  but  He 
comes  to  reign  in  our  hearts,  for  His  kingdom  is 
not  of  this  world. 

How  shall  we  prepare  ourselves  then  for  this  His 
Coming?  Chiefly  by  unselfishness  and  by  service  to 
others  for  Him  and  in  His  Name.  The  virtues  of 
devotion,  of  steadfastness  and  of  gentleness  need 
developing  in  us  all,  as  is  stated  clearly  by  the 
Order  of  the  Star  in  the  East,  a  Society  which  exists 
to  prepare  the  way  for  His  second  Coming,  to  help 
us  to  fit  ourselves  to  receive  Him,  and  so  far  as  may 
be  to  help  to  make  others  ready  as  well. 


Advent  25 

This  time,  as  indeed  He  is  said  to  have  foretold, 
there  will  be  many  who  will  not  heed,  many  who 
will  be  wrapped  up  in  business  and  in  pleasure.  He 
quotes  the  legendary  story  of  Noah,  that  men  were 
going  on  with  their  work  and  their  play  and  pay- 
ing no  attention  to  the  prophecies,  and  the  flood 
came  suddenly  and  destroyed  them  all.  This  is  the 
legend  of  the  sinking  of  Atlantis — a  historical  fact, 
though  it  did  not  occur  exactly  as  described  in  the 
traditions.  Christ  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
just  as  it  was  then,  so  it  will  be  when  the  Son  of 
Man  shall  come  again.  The  people  will  be  fully 
occupied  with  their  business  and  pleasure,  and  not 
thinking  in  the  least  of  Him,  and  so  they  will  not 
know  Him;  they  will  not  identify  Him  or  recog- 
nize Him.  We  at  least  must  be  wiser  than  that,  we 
who  are  trying  to  study  the  inner  meaning  of  all 
these  things;  we  must  make  ourselves  ready  to  re- 
ceive Him;  and  for  those  who  will  so  prepare  them- 
selves, be  sure  that  a  wonderful  and  a  glorious  time 
will  come. 

We  hardly  realize,  perhaps,  how  stupendous  is  the 
privilege  of  being  born  at  this  time,  of  having  been 
able  to  take  part  (for  we  all  have  taken  part  in 
one  way  or  another,  I  hope  and  believe)  in  the  great 
war  of  right  against  wrong,  which  has  so  recently 
drawn  to  a  close;  and  even  more  than  that,  we  who 
live  now  may  hope  to  see  the  second  Coming  of  the 
Christ  among  us.  And  think  what  that  should  mean 
to  us,  if  we  recognize  Him. 

For  He  Whom  now  we  trust  in 

Shall  then  be  seen  and  known, 
And  they  who  know  and  serve  Him 

Shall  have  Him  for  their  own. 


26  &he  Christian  Festivals 

They  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall 
make  them  free,  for  in  His  service  there  is  perfect 
freedom.  And  He  has  told  us  that  whosoever  does 
service  unto  one  of  the  least  of  His  brethren,  does 
it  unto  Him.  That  must  be  our  preparation. 

For  us  who  know  the  nearness  of  His  Coming, 
Advent  is  a  time  not  of  fear,  but  of  joyous  recol- 
lection and  of  still  more  joyous  anticipation.  Our 
attitude  is  well  expressed  in  the  ancient  hymn: 

Eejoice!   rejoice!    Emmanuel 
Shall  come  to  thee,  O  Israel. 

At  the  season  of  Advent  we  should  have  much  in 
our  minds  the  necessity  of  the  quality  of  discrimin- 
ation in  making  ready  for  our  own  Initiation,  and 
also  for  the  Coming  of  the  Lord.  It  would  be 
useful  for  us  to  think  carefully  how  that  great 
quality  can  be  displayed  in  our  efforts  to  spread 
the  knowledge  of  that  near  Coming — how  in  our 
work  of  preparation  we  can  display  the  wisdom 
of  the  serpent  as  well  as  the  harmlesisness  of 
the  dove.  "With  these  thoughts  in  our  minds 
"well  may  we  rejoice  and  sing,"  as  our  hymn 
tells  us,  for  "we  are  waiting  with  a  hope  that 
cannot  fail."  Brethren,  the  Coming  of  the  Lord 
draweth  nigh;  yea,  it  is  even  at  the  doors. 
Already  the  dawn  is  lightening;  soon  shall  be  the 
rising  of  the  sun. 

Coming!    in  the  opening  East 
Herald  brightness  slowly  swells; 

Coming!    O  my  glorious  Priest, 
Hear  we  not  Thy  golden  bells? 


CHAPTER  II 

CHEISTMAS 

Christmas  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  festivals 
of  the  Church;  it  is  perhaps  surpassed  only  by 
Easter,  for  on  this  day  we  celebrate  the  birth  of  the 
Sun-God,  as  on  that  day  we  celebrate  His  victory 
over  the  powers  of  darkness.  Christianity,  like  all 
the  other  religions,  was  founded  in  the  northern 
hemisphere,  and  consequently  its  festivals  all  fall  at; 
inappropriate  times  so  far  as  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere is  concerned.  The  rebirth  of  the  Sun-God 
after  the  eclipse  of  winter  was  celebrated  on  the 
first  day  which  was  definitely  longer  both  in  the 
morning  and  in  the  evening,  immediately  after  the 
winter  solstice,  the  point  at  which  the  earth  turns 
in  its  circuit  round  the  sun,  and  begins  to  pass  away 
from  him  instead  of  drawing  towards  him.  In  the 
same  way  the  victory  of  the  Sun-God  over  the 
powers  of  darkness  was  celebrated  as  soon  as  the 
equinox  had  passed — as  soon  as  the  day  was 
definitely  longer  than  the  night.  These  festivals  of 
the  Sun-God  had  been  kept  for  thousands  of  years 
before  the  birth  of  Jesus,  so  that  it  was  quite 
natural  for  the  early  Church  to  adopt  their  dates 
for  its  celebrations. 

The  actual  date  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  is  not  known, 
but  from  various  indications  it  seems  probable  that 
it  was  some  time  in  the  spring.  The  25th  of  Decem- 
ber was,  however,  selected  fairly  early  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal history,  because  it  coincided  with  that  great 
Sun-festival,  and  it  was  naturally  convenient  to 

27 


28  fine  Christian  Festivals 

take  advantage  of  what  was  already  a  public  holi- 
day. Those  who  do  not  recognize  the  symbolical 
meaning  of  the  life  of  the  Christ  naturally  suppose 
all  these  ecclesiastical  commemorations  to  be  merely 
historical;  but  we,  who  are  trying  to  delve  a  little 
deeper  into  the  truths  of  nature,  shall  none  the  less 
find  it  interesting  to  look  for  other  and  deeper  signi- 
fications as  well. 

What  are  the  points  of  which  the  great  Christmas 
celebration  reminds  the  Liberal  Catholic?  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  are  no  less  than  seven  of  these 
points,  and  I  will  try  to  explain  them  one  by  one. 

1.  We  must  certainly  not  ignore  the  historic  aspect 
of  the  day,  even  though  we  know  that  it  is  not  an 
actual  anniversary.  In  precisely  the  same  manner, 
it  is  agreed  that  a  certain  convenient  day  shall  be 
celebrated  each  year  as  the  birthday  of  King  George, 
although  it  may  not  be  the  anniversary  of  his 
coming  into  the  world  in  this  incarnation;  but  it 
would  be  both  foolish  and  improper  to  decline  to 
observe  it  on  that  account.  Unquestionably,  there- 
fore, we  are  called  upon  on  Christmas  Day  to  look 
back  to  that  descent  of  the  great  disciple  Jesus,  and 
to  thank  him  for  it,  and  for  all  that  has  since  come 
to  the  world  in  consequence  of  it.  It  was  he  who 
lent  his  body  to  the  Great  Teacher  in  order  that 
He  might  come  and  found  His  religion  and  preach 
His  gospel  upon  earth. 

That  may  seem  a  new  and  strange  idea  to  some, 
but  it  is  one  quite  commonly  understood  by  those 
who  grasp  the  facts  of  reincarnation — those  who 
know  something  of  the  might  and  the  power  and  the 
dignity  of  the  Great  One  Whom  we  call  the  World- 


Christmas  29 

Teacher.  We  know  that  it  would  not  be  economy 
for  Him,  it  would  not  be  a  good  use  of  His  stupen- 
dous power,  that  He  should  occupy  a  human  body 
through  all  the  period  of  its  birth  and  growth,  the 
earlier  stages  of  its  life.  Therefore  one  of  His  dis- 
ciples takes  charge  of  all  that  for  Him,  and  He 
steps  into  the  full-grown  and  fully-prepared  body 
when  He  is  ready  to  do  so,  and  uses  it  for  the  pur- 
pose for  which  alone  He  takes  it  over.  For  He 
Himself  lives  habitually  upon  a  plane  far  higher, 
and  carries  on  there  a  work  so  magnificent,  so  be- 
yond our  conception,  that  it  is  little  use  for  us  to 
try  to  grasp  it,  except  in  the  merest  outline. 

In  this  particular  case  an  advanced  disciple  of 
the  Lord  Christ  took  birth  in  the  year  105  B.C.  among 
the  descendants  of  King  David,  as  a  son  of  Joseph 
and  Mary;  and  to  him  was  given  the  name  of  Jesus. 
He  remained  in  charge  of  that  body  until  it  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age,  and  then  handed  it  over 
to  the  Christ,  "Who  occupied  it  for  the  three  years 
of  His  earthly  ministry.  The  disciple  Jesus  was 
reborn  as  Apollonius  of  Tyana  just  about  the  date 
usually  assigned  to  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era;  and  a  thousand  years  later  he  appeared  as  the 
great  teacher  Kamanujacharya,  who  left  so  deep  an 
impression  upon  Indian  thought.  In  due  course  he 
received  the  reward  of  his  self-sacrifice,  and  attained 
the  Asekha  Initiation,  thereby  becoming  one  of  the 
Masters  of  the  Wisdom.  We  reverence  Him  now, 
therefore,  no  longer  as  the  disciple,  but  the  Master 
Jesus. 

Therefore  it  is  well  that  we  should  sing  our 
Christmas  hymns  and  carols,  and  perpetuate  the 
beautiful  traditions  which  have  gathered  round  the 


30  6he  Christian  Festivals 

birth  of  the  Master  Jesus.  We  do  not  necessarily 
thereby  assert  our  belief  in  their  historical  ac- 
curacy; for  indeed  the  same  lovely  legends  hang 
round  other  births  of  the  World- Teacher,  and  it  is 
perhaps  difficult  to  suppose  that  they  were  literally 
true  on  all  these  various  occasions.  But  we  cer- 
tainly need  not  doubt  that  each  such  birth  is  a 
great  occasion,  and  is  attended  with  unusual 
phenomena  upon  higher  planes,  which  may  have  been 
seen  by  some  at  least  of  those  who  were  at  that 
period  living  in  physical  bodies. 

2.  We  call  to  mind  upon  this  occasion  the  descent 
of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  into 
matter;  and,  just  as  in  the  smaller  cycle  we  owe 
deep  thankfulness  to  our  great  World-Teacher  for 
His  descent  into  a  human  body  in  order  to  help 
and  to  guide  us,  so  should  we  also  feel  profound 
gratitude  to  the  great  Solar  Deity  Himself  for  that 
willing  limitation  of  His  power  and  His  glory  which 
has  brought  us  into  existence. 

There  are  many  in  the  world  who  might  say  that 
they  feel  no  gratitude  for  having  been  brought  into 
existence — that  life  is  to  them  more  sorrow  than  joy, 
and  if  they  could  have  been  consulted  they  would 
have  preferred  not  to  be.  But  any  who  speak  thus 
are  thinking  only  of  the  very  little  that  they  see 
and  know  of  the  great  cycle  of  life;  they  know  no- 
thing whatever  of  the  glory  that  lies  before  us;  they 
have  realized  nothing  of  the  mighty  plan  of  which 
they  are  an  infinitesimal  part.  Those  of  us  who 
are  happy  enough  to  know  a  little  of  that  glorious 
design  cannot  but  be  filled  with  vivid  though  humble 
admiration  for  it;  for  we  see  beyond  our  present 


Christmas  31 

inefficiency  to  the  wonder  and  the  beauty  of 
the  future.  We  realize  something  of  the  splen- 
did scheme  in  which  His  marvellous  love  is 
manifested,  and  when  we  catch  even  a  glimpse  of 
that,  we  cannot  but  feel  strongly  moved  and  full  of 
gratitude  that  we  should  have  been  permitted  so 
wondrous  a  privilege  as  that  of  taking  a  part,  how- 
ever small,  in  the  glory  and  the  perfection  that  is 
to  be.  Let  us  show  that  gratitude,  then,  by 
endeavouring  to  comprehend  His  manifestation  so 
far  as  we  may,  and  intelligently  to  co-operate  with  it. 
3.  Yet  again,  as  we  have  already  said,  Christmas 
Day  reminds  us  of  that  first  of  the  great  Initiations, 
of  which  it  is  a  symbol  in  the  carefully  arranged 
syllabus  of  the  Church's  Year.  We  should  think, 
then,  what  this  first  Initiation  means  for  us — how 
it  is  indeed  a  second  birth — a  birth  into  the  great 
White  Brotherhood.  During  the  preparatory  season 
of  Advent  we  have  been  considering  the  qualifica- 
tions needed  for  it;  now  we  should  contemplate  the 
thing  itself  and  its  results.  We  should  realize  how 
one  who  has  taken  that  step  has  become  safe  for 
ever,  and  therefore  may  truly  look  upon  the  great 
World-Teacher  as  his  Saviour — though  not  indeed 
from  the  mediaeval  myth  of  everlasting  torture. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  that  in  nature,  and  there 
never  has  been;  the  whole  thing  is  a  frightful  bogy 
which  men  have  allowed  to  grow  up  and  to  terrify 
them.  There  is  no  eternal  damnation  to  be  saved 
from;  the  world  needs  a  saviour  from  such  a  hor- 
rible idea,  but  not  from  the  fact,  because  it  is  not 
a  fact  at  all.  Such  a  delusion  is  part  of  the  error 
and  the  ignorance  which  causes  all  the  trouble  and 
all  the  suffering  which  we  see  around  us.  Verily  is 


32  She  Christian  Festivals 

the  World-Teacher  a  Saviour,  not  only  for  the 
Initiate,  but  for  all  of  us;  for  it  is  His  instruction 
which  saves  us  from  our  own  error  and  ignorance, 
and  therefore  from  much  of  sorrow  and  of  suffer- 
ing, which  are  the  necessary  consequences  of  that 
ignorance. 

Not  only  should  we  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  this  wonderful  Initiation  shall  be  ours,  but  we 
should  also  make  this  an  occasion  of  grateful  re- 
joicing that  for  some  it  has  already  come.  We  thank 
God  for  His  saints — for  the  elevation  which  they 
have  given  to  humanity,  not  only  by  the  encourage- 
ment of  the  example  which  they  set  before  us,  but 
by  the  actual  uplift  to  the  whole  which  each  one  of 
them  has  given  in  his  own  attainment.  This  uplift 
is  a  reality,  by  no  means  to  be  despised  or  for- 
gotten; humanity  is  a  brotherhood,  little  as  most 
men  recognize  that  fact,  and  the  unity  is  so  real 
that  whenever  one  nian  attains,  all  the  rest  are 
definitely  helped  and  raised  by  that  attainment.  So 
that  should  be  another  aspect  of  our  Christmas  joy. 

I  know  that  it  comes  as  a  shock  to  many  good 
and  earnest  Christians  to  be  told  that  the  gospel 
story  is  not  history,  but  truly  myth.  When  one  says 
that,  people  think  at  once:  "You  are  taking  away 
from  us  our  Jesus,  our  Saviour.  You  are  denying 
His  historic  existence."  We  are  not  denying  that 
at  all,  but  we  do  hold  that  the  gospel  history  as  it 
is  now  written  is  not,  and  furthermore  was  never 
intended  to  be,  an  actual  account  of  the  life  of  that 
great  World-Teacher,  the  Christ.  We  know  but 
little  of  His  true  life-story.  It  seems  certain  that 
some  parts  of  it  were  interwoven  into  this  myth;  it 
seems  certain  that  some  at  least  of  the  sayings 


Christmas  33 

which  in  the  gospels  are  credited  to  the  Lord  Christ 
were  really  spoken  by  Him.  But  it  is  a  matter  of 
equal  certainty  that  some  of  the  others  were  not; 
and  it  is  also  plain  to  anyone  who  understands  the 
subject,  and  has  read  something  of  comparative  re- 
ligion, that  the  whole  account  is  cast  in  that  allegori- 
cal form  intentionally — that  it  represents  not  the 
life-history  of  any  one  man,  but  the  spiritual  history 
of  every  true  follower  of  the  Christ.  It  is  obviously 
not  a  history,  but  a  drama — a  collection  of  episodes, 
arranged  as  though  for  presentation  on  a  stage. 

This  idea,  which  seems  so  new  to  many,  is  not 
really  new  at  all.  It  was  quite  manifest  to  the 
greatest  of  the  Church  Fathers.  It  is  strange  only 
to  us,  and  it  is  strange  because  we  inherit  a  great 
deal  of  the  darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  these 
days  we  can  no  longer  give  blind  faith  to  something 
which  our  reason  shows  us  to  be  an  impossibility. 
We  need  to  comprehend  what  this  beautiful  story 
means,  and  it  is  quite  easy  to  follow  that.  Origen, 
the  greatest  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  explains 
the  thing  most  lucidly.  He  says  that  there  were  in 
his  time  (and  there  certainly  are  now)  two  kinds 
of  Christians.  There  were  those  whom  he  called  the 
believers  in  "  somatic "  Christianity,  which  means 
bodily  or  physical  Christianity.  He  makes  it  per- 
fectly clear  that  by  that  expression  he  means  those 
who  believe  in  the  story  as  a  story,  and  he  says  of 
their  doctrine:  "What  better  could  you  have  for  the 
instruction  of  the  masses?"  But  he  makes  it  abun- 
dantly evident  that  the  spiritual  Christian  holds  an 
altogether  higher  form  of  Christianity,  in  which  he 
understands  the  inner  meaning  of  all  these  allegories. 
Christ  in  each  of  His  parables  is  represented  to 


34  The  Christian  Festivals 

have  told  a  story  which  had  within  it  two  inner 
meanings.  First  there  was  the  purely  physical  tale 
for  children,  which  described  (for  example)  how 
the  sower  went  forth  to  sow;  secondly  there  was  an 
intellectual  explanation,  whereby  the  seed  is  the 
word  of  God,  the  sower  is  the  preacher,  and  the  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  ground  are  the  different  kinds  of  hearts 
on  which  it  falls.  Thirdly,  there  is  always  an  inner 
and  a  still  more  spiritual  signification  which  is  not 
given  out,  which  in  this  particular  case  is  the  pour- 
ing out  of  the  divine  life  in  many  planes  and  into 
many  worlds. 

Origen  holds  that,  just  as  the  words  of  the  Christ 
bear  an  inner  interpretation,  so  does  the  whole  nar- 
rative of  the  Christ  bear  an  inner  interpretation, 
that  can  be  seen  only  if  we  study  its  similarity 
to  the  other  presentations  of  the  same  great  allegory. 
He  insists  that  all  this  takes  place  not  in  the  fleet- 
ing world  of  shadows,  but  in  the  eternal  counsels 
of  the  Most  High.  He  says  that  so  long  as  we 
understand  the  universal  truths  which  are  revealed 
by  the  story,  the  story  itself  is  of  no  importance. 
Its  meaning  is  clear,  it  describes  the  progress  which 
lies  before  every  Christian  man.  People  who  study 
these  matters  deeply  are  sometimes  disturbed  to 
find  the  close  resemblance  which  exists  between  the 
Christian  legend  and  those  of  other  Saviours  long 
before — pagan  Christs,  as  Robertson  calls  Theo  in 
his  book  on  the  subject.  It  is  true  that  all  the 
details  of  the  life  of  the  Christ  are  to  be  paralleled 
by  anecdotes  of  other  Teachers  Who  were  unques- 
tionably far  older  in  time  than  He,  so  that  either 
we  must  accept  the  idea  of  a  wholesale  plagiarism 
by  the  Christian  writers  from  those  earlier  authors, 


Christmas  35 

or  else  we  must  suppose  that  all  of  them  are  trying 
to  set  forth  the  same  great  truth,  but  are  setting  it 
forth  each  in  his  own  way.  That  explanation  is  not 
without  confirmation  even  in  the  existing  scriptures, 
for  St.  Paul  himself  is  made  to  say  in  how  many 
ways,  and  at  how  many  different  times  revelations 
have  been  made.  He  writes  to  the  Hebrews:  "God 
Who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake 
in  time  past  unto  our  fathers  by  the  prophets " 
(meaning  not  those  few  local  Jewish  prophets,  but 
all  the  great  prophetai,  the  great  teachers  of  the 
world)  "hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us 
by  His  Son/1 

We  want  to  get  our  people  to  take  a  more 
rational  view  of  religion  than  many  of  our  fellow 
Christians  take  to-day.  They  are  unfortunately 
obsessed  with  the  idea  that  Christianity  is  the 
only  religion,  and  that  all  the  others  are  just 
a  set  of  heathen  superstitions.  That  is  a  most 
illiterate  and  ignorant  attitude  to  take,  and  it  shows 
that  they  know  nothing  whatever  of  these  other  re- 
ligions. That  should  not  be  so.  Religious  people 
should  take  an  interest  in  all  presentations  of  reli- 
gion. It  happens  (it  is  not  a  mere  happening,  for 
it  is  a  matter  of  our  destiny  and  our  deserts) 
that  we  have  been  born  into  this  race,  and  into  a 
country  where  the  recognized  religion  is  Christianity. 
That  is  not  a  mere  chance.  We  were  born  there 
because  we  deserved  to  be;  because  the  best  oppor- 
tunity for  us  is  to  come  into  this  particular  set  of 
environments ;  but  other  people  in  every  way  as  good 
as  ourselves,  and  as  far  advanced  as  ourselves,  are 
born  into  quite  a  different  environment,  and  we 
must  try  to  realize  that  to  them  their  religion  is 


36  The  Christian  Festivals 

just  as  natural  as  ours  is  to  us.  We  probably  can- 
not imagine  that  we  could  have  been  born  into  any 
other  religion,  just  as  a  man  feels  that  he  never 
could  have  taken  birth  as  a  woman,  or  a  woman  as 
a  man.  But  that  is  of  course  mere  illusion;  the 
soul  has  neither  sex  nor  race,  and  we  take  these  dif- 
ferent births  according  to  what  is  best  for  our 
development. 

All  religions  alike  are  statements  of  the  same 
great  truth,  and  each  of  those  religions  has  a  special 
variant  or  facet  of  that  truth  to  present  to  us. 
There  is  the  religion  of  Hinduism,  a  religion  at  pre- 
sent professed  by  three  hundred  millions  of  people, 
and  professed  by  their  ancestors  (for  one  must  be 
born  into  this  religion  in  order  to  belong  to  it)  back 
through  long  periods  of  high  civilization — a  civili- 
zation that  was  already  at  its  height  when  our  fore- 
fathers, the  ancient  Britons,  were  running  about 
naked  in  the  woods  and  painting  themselves  blue. 
Their  religion  has  for  its  greatest  feature  the  idea 
of  duty — dharma,  they  call  it.  Their  one  remedy 
for  every  ill  is:  "Let  a  man  do  his  duty; 
each  man  is  born  in  a  particular  place  with 
a  particular  duty  to  do,  let  him  do  it";  and 
they  dwell  very  greatly  on  the  immanence  of  God. 
In  Ancient  Egypt  another  mighty  civilization  was 
running  its  course  at  the  same  time.  The  great 
central  point  of  its  religion  was  what  we  should 
now  call  science — that  is  to  say  the  mastery  of 
nature  by  knowing  all  about  it;  and  the  Egyptians 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  great  deal  of  our  modern 
science.  The  very  name  by  which  they  called  their 
country,  Khem,  gave  the  name  to  our  science  of 
chemistry. 


Christmas  37 

In  ancient  Persia  they  had  another  great  reli- 
gion, Zoroastrianism.  It  has  sometimes  been  called 
sun-worship,  but  we  must  not  be  misled  by  a  popular 
title  of  that  sort,  for  no  one  ever  worshipped  the 
sun  as  such,  but  the  sun  as  a  manifestation  of  the 
great  power  behind  it.  Their  chief  idea  was  purity. 
They  wished  above  all  things  else  to  emphasize 
purity  in  thought  and  word  and  act.  Coming 
further  down  the  stream  of  time  there  was  the  reli- 
gion of  Greece,  the  main  point  of  which  was  beauty. 
The  endeavour  of  the  Greeks  was  to  impress  upon 
people  beauty  in  their  lives,  beauty  in  their  sur- 
roundings, in  everything  they  had  about  them; 
beauty  of  character  as  well  as  of  form  and  colour. 
Then  came  Rome  with  its  great  religion,  enforcing 
the  idea  of  law  and  discipline,  insisting  always  upon 
duty  to  the  community — a  very  fine  idea.  Then 
there  was  the  teaching  of  the  Buddha;  in  His  great 
religion  He  also  preaches  the  law,  but  not  quite  in 
the  same  sense.  When  He  speaks  of  the  law  He 
means  not  man-made  law  at  all,  but  the  order  of 
nature,  and  He  says  that  all  the  mistakes  which 
men  make  come  from  their  ignorance.  If  they  will 
only  study  the  divine  scheme  and  live  accordingly, 
all  will  go  well. 

Then  comes  our,  religion  of  Christianity ;  its 
great  central  idea  is  self -sacrifice — the  thought  that 
the  greatest  among  us  shall  be  he  who  serveth  best. 
You  know  the  highest  title  of  a  bishop  is  Servi^s 
servorum  Dei,  "Servant  of  the  servants  of  God/' 
That  is  the  great  point  that  Christianity  has  to 
emphasize.  All  these  religions  come  at  different 
times,  each  when  its  particular  quality  is  most 
needed  in  the  world.  Surely  any  one  can  see  that 


38  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  is  a  far  grander  conception  than  the  orthodox 
theory  that  all  these  other  religions  are  feeble  or 
evil  superstitions,  and  that  the  only  people  who  can 
be  saved  are  those  who  happen  to  come  into  touch 
with  the  Christian  faith.  This  latter  seems  a 
strange  and  ridiculous  idea,  but  it  is  of  a  piece  with 
the  self-conceit  which  made  men  think  that  this  tiny 
planet  is  the  centre  of  the  universe;  that  this  par- 
ticular little  speck  of  mud  is  the  hub  of  creation, 
and  that  all  these  tremendous  stars  and  suns  are 
circling  round  it;  that  God  Himself  came  down  to 
live  and  die  upon  it  in  order  that  its  comparatively 
insignificant  population  might  be  saved,  and  that  all 
the  other  populations  of  those  far  more  magnificent 
worlds  are  left  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

No  one  need  be  in  the  least  distressed  to  find  the 
same  truths  taught  in  other  religions.  It  is  what 
we  should  expect,  as  soon  as  we  get  rid  of  this  amaz- 
ing exclusive  idea  that  we  are  the  only  people  who 
ever  heard  the  truth — that  of  all  the  countless  mil- 
lions of  men  who  have  ever  lived  on  earth,  the  few 
generations  from  the  time  of  Jesus  are  the  only 
men  to  whom  God  thought  it  worth  while  to  make 
any  revelation  of  Himself  at  all.  If  we  can  put 
aside  that  astounding  unreasonableness  we  shall  rea- 
lize that  there  have  been  many  presentations  of  the 
truth,  which  are  all  alike  in  many  respects,  though 
each  is  put  in  the  way  most  suitable  for  the  people 
at  the  time.  Therefore,  instead  of  being  alarmed 
at  these  likenesses,  let  us  welcome  them;  let  us  com- 
pare all  the  different  accounts,  and  so  learn  from 
them  more  of  the  truth  that  lies  behind  them  all. 

We  need  never  fear  that  we  shall  lose  anything 
by  understanding  the  inner  meaning  of  the  gospel 


Christmas  39 

story;  on  the  contrary  we  shall  gain  much.  In 
this  Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  lay  no  injunction 
upon  men  as  to  what  they  shall  believe.  We  put 
before  them  the  Creed  as  worthy  of  study,  and  we 
say  to  them  that  they  may  interpret  it  literally,  if 
they  like.  That  is  their  affair.  Or  they  may  take 
the  higher  symbolical  interpretation  whinh  we  offer 
them  if  they  prefer  it.  Whatever  they  may  elect 
to  believe,  there  can  be  no  harm  at  least  in  their 
knowing  the  inner  meaning,  so  that  they  may  have 
it  before  their  minds,  in  order  that  if  they  hear  the 
historical  theory  overthrown  by  argument,  they  may 
understand  that  there  is  another  and  more  spiritual 
interpretation  to  which  exception  cannot  be  taken. 
We  shall  keep  our  feasts  better,  and  not  worse,  if 
we  have  a  fuller  and  clearer  understanding  of  all 
that  they  mean.  By  all  means  let  those  who  wish 
to  do  so  hold  to  the  physical  record;  but  let  them 
remember  also  that  behind  that  earthly  story  there 
is  always  a  heavenly  meaning.  We  may  think  of 
it  as  existing  for  the  sake  of  the  heavenly  meaning 
if  we  like,  which  is  what  I  myself  believe  as  re- 
garding it.  Or  we  may  accept  it  as  having  actually 
taken  place,  and  suppose  that  this  inner  and  beauti- 
ful explanation  has  been  invented  to  fit  it.  It  does 
not  matter.  It  is  for  each  man  alone  to  'decide  what 
form  of  faith  he  will  hold  with  regard  to  all  this, 
so  long  as  he  understands  the  high,  spiritual,  glorious 
meaning,  and  so  long  as  he  tries  to  live  up  to  all 
that  it  involves. 

4.  Through  the  Advent  season  the  Church  looks 
forward  to  the  next  Coming  of  our  Lord;  at  Christ- 
mas that  expectation  culminates,  and  her  celebration 


40  The  Christian  Festivals 

is  one  of  gratitude  not  only  for  His  last  Coming,  but 
also  for  favours  yet  to  come.  We  cannot  but  think 
of  that  greater  Christmas  when  He  shall  again 
appear  among  us  on  the  physical  plane  in  a  body 
that  can  be  seen  of  all.  For  He  Himself,  the  very 
same  Great  One  Who  took  the  body  of  Jesus  two 
thousand  years  ago,  is  ready  soon  to  come  again, 
and  to  bless  the  world  once  more  with  His  teaching 
and  His  help,  as  He  blessed  it  before.  The  voice 
which  spake  as  never  man  spake  will  speak  again 
in  the  ears  of  men  now  living,  and  at  no  great  dis- 
tance of  time  from  the  present  day.  Those  of  us 
who  hold  that  belief  are  naturally  eager  to  do  what 
we  can  to  prepare  ourselves  and  others  for  His 
Coming,  and  to  try  to  spread  the  news  of  it  in  the 
outer  world. 

It  is  not  for  us  to  criticize,  or  even  to  marvel 
at,  the  arrangements  made  when  last  He  came 
to  earth;  but  it  can  hardly  be  unseemly  for 
us  to  note  that  little  was  then  done  (per- 
haps little  could  be  done)  in  the  way  of  pre- 
paration in  the  outer  world.  There  seems  to  have 
been  a  general  expectation  of  the  coming  of  some 
Great  One,  as  there  is  now;  but  there  was  only  one 
John  the  Baptist,  so  far  as  we  know.  This  time  the 
conditions  in  the  world  are  in  every  way  so  different 
that  preparation  may  be  usefully  attempted  on  a 
somewhat  wider  scale,  and  every  one  who,  having 
examined  the  evidence,  sees  reason  to  expect  the 
near  Coming  of  the  Lord  should  do  what  he  can  to 
prepare  His  way  and  make  His  paths  straight. 

The  idea  of  the  second  Coming  of  Christ  takes  on 
a  different  aspect  when  we  realize  that  the  world  is 
steadily  evolving  and  that  the  Christ  is  a  mighty 


Christmas  41 

Official  Who  is  in  charge  of  its  religious  thought, 
and  either  comes  Himself  or  sends  one  of  His  pupils 
as  a  teacher  whenever  He  thinks  that  such  a  visit 
will  help  it  in  its  evolution.  I  know  how  strange 
that  idea  must  seem  to  many  people  who  have  been 
brought  up  in  the  belief  that  there  is  only  one  reli- 
gion in  the  world — that  there  are  a  few  heathen 
superstitions  somewhere  or  other  in  far-off  corners 
of  the  earth,  but  that  our  only  duty  with  regard  to 
them  is  to  try  to  convert  the  poor  heathen  from 
the  error  of  their  ways,  and  to  give  them  the  truth 
which  has  been  revealed  to  us  alone.  I  suppose  it 
has  never  occurred  to  some  people  that  it  would  be 
rather  strange  that  we,  of  all  the  people  in  all  ages, 
alone  should  have  a  monopoly  of  the  truth.  There 
have  been  mighty  sages,  great  saints,  magnificent 
thinkers,  who  had  not  this  truth,  which  has  been 
given  exclusively  to  a  small  handful  of  us.  They 
apparently  had  not  these  advantages,  and  they 
seem  to  have  done  remarkably  well  without  them. 
Surely  it  is  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  there 
are  many  great  religions  in  the  world,  and  that  they 
are  all  equally  paths  which  lead  up  the  same  great 
mountain  of  truth. 

I  mean  that  all  the  great  religions  come  from  the 
same  central  source;  that  this  World-Teacher  and 
His  Department  are  responsible  for  all  of  them.  I 
do  not  say  that  He  is  responsible  for  the  vagaries 
of  the  individual  believer.  Men  have  corrupted  and 
distorted  His  teaching ;  that  is  true  of  every  religion. 
That  these  faiths  as  originally  founded  are  all 
statements  of  the  same  eternal  truth,  we  can  see  for 
ourselves,  if  we  will  take  the  trouble  to  study  com- 
parative religion.  Unfortunately  we  inherit  the 


42  The  Christian  Festivals 

ignorance  of  the  period  called  the  dark  ages  in 
Europe — a  time  in  which  few  people  seem  to  have 
known  anything  worth  knowing;  and  as  far  as  reli- 
gious matters  are  concerned,  many  people  have  not 
tried  yet  to  come  up  out  of  that  darkness.  We  do 
realize  that  to  practise  the  so-called  science  of  the 
Middle  Ages  would  be  ridiculous.  We  know  a  great 
deal  more  now;  we  know  that  to  live  according  to 
the  hygiene  of  the  Middle  Ages  would  lay  us  open 
to  awful  epidemics;  but  most  people  have  not  rea- 
lized that  the  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
equally  defective  in  its  statement.  Our  mediaeval 
ancestors  did  not  understand  Christianity;  they 
took  it  in  the  narrowest  and  most  bigoted  way,  where- 
as it  is  capable  of  an  interpretation  more  useful, 
wider  and  more  tolerant  in  every  way.  And  that  is 
the  interpretation  we  try  to  put  upon  it  to-day. 

In  one  of  the  Indian  Scriptures,  the  World-Teacher 
is  represented  as  saying  that  whenever  the  world 
falls  into  great  sorrow  and  misery,  whenever  it 
seems  that  unbelief  and  evil  are  triumphant,  then 
He  comes  to  present  the  eternal  truth  in  some  new 
way  which  shall  to  some  extent  take  the  place  of 
His  previous  statements,  which  have  been  distorted. 
This  may  seem  strange  to  some,  but  let  us  take  it 
for  the  moment  and  think  of  it — that  all  these 
various  presentations  differ  because  they  are  offered 
to  different  people  at  different  ages  of  the  world, 
at  different  stages  of  the  progress  of  human 
thought.  Let  us  grasp  that  idea,  and  we  shall  see 
that  no  one  of  them  can  be  expected  to  be  eternal 
—that,  on  the  contrary,  everyone  of  them  must  in 
time  become  more  or  less  corrupted,  more  or  less 
distorted;  and  therefore,  just  because  it  is  cor- 


Christmas  43 

rupted,  unsuited  for  the  needs  of  the  world.  The 
world  is  advancing,  and  a  new  presentation  from 
time  to  time  is  an  absolute  necessity.  What  was 
appropriate  for  people  two  thousand  years  ago 
cannot  be  fully  suited  for  us  in  the  present  day. 
A  vast  deal  more  is  known  on  many  subjects  than 
was  known  then,  and  any  statement  of  truth  that 
was  fitted  for  people  then  will  need  considerable 
revision  and  addition  before  it  can  be  made  suit- 
able for  us.  On  the  other  hand,  a  presentation  of 
the  truth  such  as  would  now  be  absolutely  suitable 
for  us,  would  have  been  insanity,  would  have  been 
utterly  inappropriate,  at  that  time.  It  may  well  be 
that  it  is  thought  that  a  restatement  of  the  same 
great  truths  would  be  beneficial  and  helpful. 

We  can  see  if  we  look  around  us  that  our  churches 
are  not  being  attended  by  the  people  as  a  whole. 
We  hear  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  everyone  took 
part  in  the  devotional  spirit  of  the  time,  but  most 
assuredly  that  is  not  so  now.  Not  a  tenth  part  of 
the  population  of  any  so-called  Christian  country 
takes  part  in  its  religious  observances;  I  suppose 
the  proportion  is  probably  much  less  than  that. 
That  does  mean  (and  it  is  no  use  trying  to  avoid 
the  issue)  that  the  religion  as  now  stated  has  lost 
its  hold  on  the  bulk  of  the  population.  When  that 
is  the  case,  one  way  of  dealing  with  the  difficulty 
might  well  be  a  restatement;  we  should  call  it,  per- 
haps, a  new  religion.  That  is  not  a  good  phrase, 
because  it  implies  much  more  than  the  mere  restate- 
ment of  the  same  truths. 

The  truths  of  religion  are  eternal  truths;  they 
may  be  distorted;  they  may  be  misrepresented — 
they  certainly  have  been;  but  the  fundamental  basis 


44  The* Christian  festivals 

of  all  the  religions  represents  eternal  verity,  which 
cannot  be  changed,  though  it  may  be  more  fully 
stated;  it  may  be  put  in  some  new  way,  which  may 
appeal  to  the  modern  spirit.  But  the  great  facts 
are  the  same.  I  do  not  mean  that  we  must  believe 
in  any  particular  name,  or  in  any  particular  cere- 
mony, but  in  the  real  basic  facts  that  in  order  to 
progress  a  man  must  be  a  good  man,  that  he  must 
live  a  high  and  pure  and  noble  life,  that  he  must 
practise  the  virtues  which  every  religion  in  the 
world  without  exception  recommends  to  him — 
charity,  nobility,  self-control,  temperance,  patience, 
and  love. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  weird  entangle- 
ment of  the  teaching  of  the  Christ  with  unscien- 
tific ideas  about  the  end  of  the  world.  It  is  curious 
to  see  how  ready  the  ignorant  still  are  to  create 
bugbears  for  themselves.  There  was  an  announce- 
ment in  the  newspapers  only  a  few  months  ago 
that  the  end  of  the  world  might  be  expected  on  a 
certain  day,  because  the  planets  were  in  a  certain 
position.  It  is  absolutely  amazing  that  sane  people 
could  be  induced  to  believe  such  nonsense.  The 
planets  have  been  in  a  similar  position  many  thou- 
sands of  times,  and  it  has  not  been  the  end  of  this 
world  or  of  any  other.  Men  do  not  seem  to  under- 
stand how  insignificant  is  the  combined  weight  of 
those  planets  in  comparison  with  the  weight  of  the 
sun;  they  might  about  as  sensibly  expect  that  a 
cart  could  be  upset  because  a  fly  settled  on  the  rim 
of  the  wheel.  Popular  ignorance  is  a  very  strange 
thing.  We  make  our  children's  lives  a  burden  to 
them  with  what  is  miscalled  education,  and  yet  this 
is  the  practical  result  of  it  all. 


Christmas  45 

Men  sometimes  say,  "The  second  Coming  of  the 
Christ  has  been  known,  and  people  have  been  look- 
ing forward  to  it  for  a  long  time;  why  should  we 
be  specially  preparing  for  it  now?"  There  are 
many  reasons  for  that — some  of  them  external  rea- 
sons, and  some  which  are  much  more  private  and 
intimate.  There  is  a  new  race  developing  in  the 
world.  We  ought  to  know  something  about  that 
here  in  Australasia,  because  this  is  one  of  the  coun- 
tries in  which  this  new  race  is  showing  itself.  If 
we  look  round  us  we  shall  see  that  there  are  still 
many  people  who  are  distinctively  English  or  Scotch 
or  Irish,  who  belong  to  the  old  races;  but  we  shall 
also  see  many,  especially  among  the  children  and 
young  people,  who  do  not  belong  to  any  of  these ; 
we  shall  see  a  new  race  springing  up  which  is  not 
English,  or  Scotch,  or  Irish,  but  Australian. 

In  America  there  are  even  more  people  in  pro- 
portion who  do  not  belong  to  any  of  the  races  which 
go  to  make  up  that  great  nation,  but  are  distinctly 
men  with  new  qualities  and  recognizably  new  physi- 
cal appearance.  It  is  an  intellectual  race;  it  is  a 
strong-willed  race;  the  study  of  it  is  wonderfully 
interesting.  Now  all  through  history  wherever  a 
new  race  has  arisen  there  has  been  a  new  religion  to 
fit  it.  It  is  probable  that  there  will  be  a  new  religion 
to  fit  this  race,  and  if  it  is  to  do  good  it  must  arise 
tolerably  soon. 

We  are  a  great  civilization — at  least  we  think 
ourselves  so — and  yet  there  is  a  vast  amount  of 
misery  in  the  world;  we  are  badly  in  need  of  some 
sort  of  change.  There  is  unrest  everywhere;  it 
would  seem  that  the  system  on  which  we  have  been 
relying  for  some  centuries  is  breaking  down  all 


46  The  Christian  Festivals 

round  us.  Something  new  is  wanted;  new  develop- 
ments are  turning  up  in  all  directions.  The  spread 
of  science  is  wonderful;  the  advance  in  knowledge 
within  recent  years  is  very  great — in  chemistry,  in 
mechanics,  in  everything.  There  is  a  new  time  com- 
ing. The  old  civilization  has  done  its  work,  and  we 
want,  we  must  have,  something  new. 

There  is  an  expectation  of  the  Coming  of  the 
Christ  all  over  the  world.  All  these  religions  of 
which  I  spoke,  so  far  as  they  are  active,  are  expect- 
ing Him.  The  Hindus  look  forward  to  the  Kalki 
Avatara;  the  Buddhists  to-day  are  awaiting  the 
Lord  Maitreya,  which  is  their  name  for  the  great 
World-Teacher  Whom  we  call  the  Christ,  Among 
the  Muhammadans,  when  a  pretender  started  up  not 
long  ago  in  Africa,  he  gained  an  immense  follow- 
ing because  he  proclaimed  himself  to  be  the  Imam 
Mahdi,  the  Saviour  for  whom  they  wait.  He  was 
not,  but  many  believed  it.  In  Zoroastrianism  there 
is  also  a  tradition  of  a  great  One  Who  is  to  come. 
Among  ourselves  there  are  the  Seventh-Day 
Adventists  and  other  similar  societies;  and  we  have 
in  our  midst  the  Order  of  the  Star  in  the  East, 
which  is  trying  to  prepare  its  members  (and  also 
outsiders)  for  the  near  Coming  of  the  World- 
Teacher. 

Why  is  there  such  a  wide  expectation  of  the  Com- 
ing of  the  Lord?  We  who  study  the  inner  side  of 
things  know  that  it  is  the  reflection  in  the  minds  of 
men  of  the  knowledge  of  greater  Beings,  the  know- 
ledge of  Adepts  and  Angels.  They  know  that  the 
Christ  is  coming  soon,  and  Their  knowledge  is  in 
the  mental  atmosphere;  it  communicates  itself  to 
our  mental  bodies  by  sympathetic  vibration,  and  it 


Christmas  47 

gives  us  this  great  expectation.     It  is  the  reflection 
of  the  thoughts  of  the  higher  Beings  Who  know. 

Assuredly  the  need  of  the  world  is  great.  None 
can  deny  that;  and  we  may  remember  in  a  scripture 
which  is  older  than  any  of  ours,  the  World-Teacher 
is  represented  as  saying:  ''When  evil  triumphs, 
then  I  come  to  help."  It  is  not  that  we  do  not 
know  what  we  ought  to  do.  We  know  the  principles, 
of  right  and  wrong  as  well  as  anyone,  but  we  do 
not  apply  them.  It  is  not  new  truth  that  we  want, 
but  new  inspiration  to  practise  the  old  truth.  There 
is  a  great  desire  to  help  among  many  people.  That 
is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times;  but  they  do  not 
know  how  to  begin.  Each  tries  his  own  little 
panacea,  and  perhaps  it  succeeds  a  little,  but  on  the 
whole  it  fails.  They  will  welcome  the  idea  of  one 
who  knows,  and  who  can  teach. 

Some  of  us  have  been  studying  this  thing,  and 
similar  things,  for  many  years.  I  myself  have  been 
working  at  this  inner  side  of  things  under  definite 
instruction  for  thirty-seven  years,  and  on  my  own 
account  twenty  years  before  that.  Some  of  us  in 
the  course  of  such  study  have  been  led  to  the  feet 
of  those  Great  Ones  who  do  know  about  these  things, 
those  who  are  in  charge  of  the  world's  evolution; 
therefore  we  can  with  confidence  repeat  that  which 
we  hear  from  them,  that  the  Coming  of  the  Lord 
draweth  nigh,  that  it  will  not  be  long  now,  as  we 
measure  earthly  time,  before  He  shall  appear 
amongst  us.  We  cannot  pretend  to  tell  to  a  year 
or  two,  because  what  is  told  to  us  is  always  to  this 
effect:  "When  the  earth  is  ready  by  your  exertions. 
I  shall  come;"  and  it  must  be  soon,  because  the 
need  is  so  great.  That,  of  course,  is  no  proof  to 


48  The  Christian  Festivals 

others.  So  far  as  they  know,  we  may  be  dreaming; 
we  may  be  altogether  in  error  in  what  we  think;  but 
I  would  suggest  that  at  least  we  give  direct  testi- 
mony, which  is  comparatively  rare  in  religious  mat- 
ters, and  so  what  we  say  constitutes  a  piece  of 
evidence  that  ought  to  be  taken  into  account. 

Look  round  the  world  and  see  how  wide-spread  is 
the  expectation;  see  how  great  is  the  need;  see  the 
new  race  waiting  for  the  religion  which  shall  fit  it 
as  it  grows  up.  There  are  plenty  of  indications 
to  enable  us  to  understand  that  this  Advent  is  not 
far  away.*  Although  what  we  see  and  know  for  our- 
selves is  no  proof  to  any  one  else,  we  do  our  duty  at 
any  rate  in  announcing  the  Coming. 

Let  us  then  make  as  determined  an  effort  as  we 
can  to  get  ready  for  the  Christ;  let  us  try  to  purify 
ourselves,  try  to  make  ourselves  what  we  wish  to 
be  if  He  is  to  come;  and  let  us  help  to  prepare  His 
way.  Long  ago,  when  He  came  in  Judaea,  there  was 
one  John  the  Baptist.  Let  us,  everyone  of  us  ac- 
cording to  his  power  and  opportunity,  be  John  the 
Baptists.  This  time  let  Him  come  not  with  one 
herald  only;  let  there  be  thousands  of  us  trying  to 
prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord  and  to  make  His  paths 
straight.  For  when  the  world  is  ready  He  will 
come.  So  let  us  join  in  the  work  of  the  Order  of 
the  Star  in  the  East  or  of  the  Liberal  Catholic 
Church;  let  each  work  in  his  own  way  for  a  better 
time,  a  time  of  brotherhood  and  love,  for  that  is 
what  the  Christ  will  preach  to  us  when  He  comes. 
Let  us  cultivate  brotherhood  and  love  in  order  that 
we  may  be  ready  to  receive  Him,  in  order  that  we 
may  profit  by  what  He  has  to  tell  us,  and  to  offer 

'See  4  World  Expectant,  by  A.  E.  Woflehouse. 


Christmas  49 

our  hearts,  our  hands,  our  speech,  to  help  Him  in 
the  work  He  is  to  do. 

5.  We  must  not  forget  that  there  is  another  aspect 
of  the  Coming  of  the  Christ — the  coming  within  the 
heart  of  each  individual,  the  development  of  the 
Christ-principle  within  us."  A  great  and  glorious 
mystery  underlies  all  this — the  wonderful,  and  yet 
most  intimate,  connection  between  the  Second  Person 
of  the  Ever-Blessed  Trinity  and  the  great  World- 
Teacher,  and  in  turn  the  link  joining  both  of  These 
to  that  Christ-principle  within  man  to  which  we 
often  give  the  name  of  intuition.  Yet  indeed  it 
means  much  more  than  intuition;  it  means  the 
wisdom  that  knows,  not  by  process  of  reasoning  but 
by  utter  inner  certainty.  That  development  must 
come  to  every  man.  That  Christ-principle  is  in 
every  one  of  us;  it  can  be  awakened — it  is  being 
awakened  among  us  even  now,  and  as  it  unfolds  we 
realize  the  true  brotherhood  of  man,  because  we 
realize  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  We  come  to  know 
that  our  separate  consciousness  is  nothing  but  an 
illusion — that  we  are  one  in  Him.  First,  one  with 
all  who  know  Him  and  love  Him;  and  then  secondly, 
by  a  still  greater  extension,  with  all  the  world, 
whether  as  yet  they  know  it  or  not.  To  touch  that 
wonderful  consciousness,  to  realize  the  Christ  with- 
in us,  is  not  so  impossible,  for  it  is  being  done  even 
now  by  some.  Gleams  of  its  glory  sometimes  mani- 
fest themselves;  flashes  of  wonderful  peace  and 
uplifting,  so  that  at  least  for  a  few  moments  we 
know.  And  those  of  us  to  whom  these  glimpses 
have  come  can  never  forget  them;  however  much 
afterwards  doubt  and  uncertainty,  sorrow  and  even 
despair  may  overwhelm  us,  we  have  known,  and 


50  The  Christian  Festivals 

therefore  inside  we  still  know,   and  that  certainty 
nothing  can  shake. 

True,  most  who  touch  that  glory  for  a  moment 
touch  it  unconsciously,  not  knowing  what  it  is,  not 
realizing  the  intensity  of  its  splendour,  not  seeing 
whither  it  would  lead  them.  They  know  that  they 
have  moments  of  ecstasy,  moments  in  which  the  love 
of  God  reaches  them  in  a  way  which  they  never 
imagined  before,  a  greater  intensity  of  bliss  which 
touches  them,  which  is  far  beyond  all  earthly  things. 
But  as  we  progress  that  certainty  will  come  oftener 
and  more  fully,  and  will  remain  with  us  longer, 
until  at  last  that  higher  consciousness  will  be  ours 
in  perpetuity — Christ  in  us  and  we  in  Him.  For 
there  are  those  who  set  themselves  deliberately  to 
gain  this  glory  and  this  splendour,  who  endeavour 
to  deal  with  it  scientifically,  and  so  to  let  knowledge 
grow  more  and  more  until  they  consciously  enter 
into  the  glory  and  the  fullness  of  the  Christ  Him- 
self, realizing  the  God  in  man,  because  they  them- 
selves are  consciously  part  of  that  God.  That  is  the 
birth  of  Christ  within  the  heart  of  man,  and  as- 
suredly it  is  a  very  real  thing.  Truly  in  that  sense 
we  may  say  that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  the  World, 
for  it  is  through  that  experience  only  that  man  can 
attain  that  which  God  means  him  to  attain. 

To  develop  oneself  intentionally  as  described  above 
is  the  shortest  and  the  most  direct  route  to  such 
awakening.  I  do  not  say  it  is  the  only  route.  One 
can  gain  that  elevation  by  intense  intellectual  ab- 
sorption, by  long-continued  hard  work  and  the 
practice  of  virtue.  But  the  shortest,  the  most  direct 
method  of  attaining  the  highest  rapidly  is  the 
deliberate  awakening  of  the  Christ  within  the  human 


Christmas  51 

heart.     For  this  and  for  its  glorious  possibility  we 
also  give  thanks  at  the  holy  season  of  Christmas. 

How  shall  we  know  whether  we  are  on  the  way 
to  this  glorious  consummation?  What  can  we  do 
to  bring  nearer  that  supreme  bliss?  If  Christ  is  to 
be  born  within  our  hearts,  we  must  be  living  the 
life  of  the  Christ;  we  must  show  forth  His  spirit 
to  those  around  us.  And  the  Christ-spirit  is  first 
of  all  love~  and  brotherhood.  The  man  in  whom  it 
is  developing  will  assuredly  exhibit  love,  kindliness, 
tolerance,  comprehension — a  general  growth  all 
round,  an  increase  of  the  quality  which  for  want  of 
a  better  word  we  often  call  bigness.  We  speak  of 
a  man  as  great  when  he  is  of  wide  tolerance,  of  open 
heart,  great  in  his  character;  and  just  those  quali- 
ties are  the  result  of  the  unfolding  of  this  Christ- 
principle. 

They  show  themselves  in  daily  life  in  various 
ways;  prominently  in  that  the  man  begins  to 
take  the  best  view  of  people  and  of  things  instead 
of  the  worst,  that  he  makes  a  practice  of 
putting  the  best  construction  possible  upon  the 
words  and  actions  of  his  fellow-men  instead  of  (as 
I  am  afraid  we  so  often  do)  the  worst  possible.  We 
shall  find  that  constantly  when  we  think  of  the 
actions  of  a  man,  we  attribute  them  to  some  weak- 
ness or  defect  in  him ;  we  assign  to  him  a  motive 
of  some  sort.  If  we  were  in  a  position  (most  of  us 
are  not)  to  get  behind  the  thought  of  that  man,  arid 
find  out  really  why  he  did  or  said  a  certain  thing, 
we  should  find  that  our  attribution  of  motive  was 
in  most  cases  absolutely  incorrect  and  unjust,  that 
his  reason  for  doing  what  he  did  was  much  more 
creditable  than  we  were  ready  to  suppose,  and  that 


52  The  Christian  Festivals 

he  had  some  thought  in  his  mind  which  never  even 
occurred  to  us.  This  assigning  of  a  motive  is  a 
habit;  we  all  find  ourselves  doing  it,  until  by  steady 
practice  and  care  we  learn  not  to  do  it,  but  to 
attribute  to  another  nothing  but  the  highest  and  the 
best  thoughts.  In  doing  that  we  may  sometimes  be 
deceived,  but  it  is  better  a  thousand  times  to  form 
a  wrong  estimate  in  that  direction,  than  once  to  do 
a  man  the  injustice  of  attributing  to  him  a  lower 
motive  and  a  lower  plane  of  thought  than  that  which 
is  really  his.  A  man  in  whom  this  wondrous  un- 
foldment  is  beginning  abandons  all  unnecessary 
criticism,  and  learns  to  see  the  good  in  everything, 
even  when  it  needs  a  little  search  to  find  it,  when 
it  is  not  as  obvious  as  the  more  objectionable 
characteristics. 

Another  infallible  sign  of  the  growth  of  the 
Christ-principle  in  a  man  is  unselfishness,  for  that 
is  the  key  to  all,  the  central  virtue  which  gives  birth 
to  all  the  others. 

We  can  see  at  once  what  a  change  it  would  make 
in  the  world  if  feelings  of  that  kind  were  widely 
spread.  How  different  everything  would  be  if  each 
man  thought  first  of  others — if  each  man  were  will- 
ing to  take  the  wider  and  more  tolerant  view,  and 
to  attribute  the  best  possible  motives  instead  of 
always  evil  ones!  Perhaps  we  cannot  hope  that  any 
large  number  of  people  will  attain  to  that  level  just 
at  present,  for  it  would  obviously  need  the  evolu- 
tion of  thousands  of  years ;  yet  there  is  a  factor  com- 
ing into  the  case  for  which  a  large  allowance  will 
have  to  be  made  by  those  who  try  to  forecast  the 
future ;  and  that  is  the  actual  physical  coming  of  the 
Christ,  the  World-Teacher,  to  be  among  us  and  help 


Christmas  53 

us  once  more.  We  cannot  tell  to  what  extent  His 
presence  may  affect  the  people.  An  influence  so 
tremendous  as  His;  the  persuasive  power  of  the 
voice  that  spake  as  never  man  spake;  the  facts  that 
His  teaching  will  be  simultaneously  reported  all  over 
the  world,  and  that  He  Himself  will  probably  visit 
all  the  countries  of  the  world  in  succession;  all 
these  considerations  show  us  that  here  is  a  factor 
whose  influence  is  incalculable.  He  may  well  pre- 
cipitate the  time  when  an  unselfish  attitude  will 
become  far  more  general  than  it  now  seems  reason- 
able to  hope. 

It  may  be  that  the  world  in  general  is  not  so  far 
as  we  think  from  that  higher  and  grander  attitude. 
It  is  undoubtedly  full  of  bitter  selfishness  and  un- 
reason, as  may  be  clearly  seen  from  the  prevalence 
of  strikes,  struggles  and  disorder  everywhere.  Most 
of  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  average  man  are 
selfish;  and  yet  that  average  man — a  perfectly  ordi- 
nary specimen — has  again  and  again  been  found 
capable  in  a  great  emergency  of  suddenly  rising  to 
heights  of  heroism  of  which  we  might  have  supposed 
him  to  foe  quite  incapable.  A  man,  apparently  just 
like  his  fellows,  a  rough  and  common  sort  of  man, 
will  deliberately  sacrifice  his  life  to  save  a  comrade. 
That  shows  that  there  are  the  seeds  of  right  feeling 
in  every  man,  and  that,  given  the  right  power  applied 
at  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  way,  the  ordinary 
man  may  be  raised  to  great  heights. 

In  the  great  war  thousands  of  men  came  forward 
voluntarily  to  risk  their  lives,  to  fight  for  an  ideal, 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  treaty,  because  our  coun- 
try's word  was  pledged.  Those  who  fought  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  pledging  of  that  word,  but 


54  The  Christian  Festivals 

they  were  willing  to  devote  themselves  to  the  utter- 
most to  redeem  their  country's  guarantee.  That 
has  a  hopeful  side;  that  is  a  good  augury  for  the 
future;  for  the  man  who  is  willing  to  give  his  life 
for  an  ideal  now  may  very  likely  be  willing  to  spend 
his  life  in  following  an  ideal  when  he  comes  back  in 
another  incarnation.  So  the  world  at  large  may  be 
more  ready  than  we  think  to  respond  to  the  mighty 
influence  which  the  great  Teacher  brings. 

Few  can  form  any  conception  of  what  that  influ- 
ence will  be.  Only  those  who  have  come  into  contact 
with  some  of  the  great  Adepts  can  estimate  the 
power  of  the  Master  of  Masters;  and  even  they  can 
only  faintly  adumbrate  the  tremendous  radiation  of 
love  and  of  strength  which  will  come  from  that 
mighty  Personality.  It  may  well  be  that  in  His 
presence  what  would  otherwise  be  hopeless  and  im- 
possible may  be  found  to  be  easy  of  achievement; 
it  may  be  that  under  that  marvellous  influence  men 
will  wake  up  and  bring  their  common  sense  to  bear 
upon  the  various  problems  which  come  before  them. 
There  is  nothing  too  great  to  hope  from  such  a  power 
as  that. 

All  this  separateness  is  an  illusion;  we  are 
one  in  Christ;  and  to  know  and  realize  that  fully 
is  to  awaken  the  Christ  within  us.  Remember 
how  it  is  written  in  the  scripture:  "Christ  in 
you,  the  hope  of  glory."  It  is  precisely  the 
presence  of  that  Christ-principle  within  us  that 
brings  the  hope  of  glory  to  every  human  soul. 
Without  that  we  should  be  lost  indeed;  that  is 
the  true  Christ,  belief  in  Whom  is  necessary  for 
salvation — not  salvation  from  a  mythical  hell,  but 
from  the  wheel  of  ever-recurring  birth  and  death. 


Christmas  55 

To  escape  from  that  wheel  is  to  avoid  the  broad  and 
easy  road  that  leads  to  death  (and  birth  and  death 
and  birth  over  and  over  again)  and  to  take  the 
narrow  and  more  difficult  path  which  leads  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  where  death  is  a  ridiculous 
impossibility — where  life,  and  the  increase  of  life 
and  power  and  love,  and  all  that  that  means,  con- 
stitute the  only  possible  future  before  the  sons  of 
men.  The  way  of  escape  lies  in  this  development. 

Though  Christ  a  thousand  times  in  Bethlehem  foe  born, 
But  not  within   thyself,  thy  soul   shall  be   forlorn. 

6.  All  great  festivals  have  another  aspect,  and  this 
one  has  it  among  the  rest — perhaps  even  this  has  it 
pre-eminently.  They  are  all  special  channels  of 
force — occasions  upon  which  a  greater  outpouring  of 
divine  power  takes  place — greater,  I  mean,  than  in 
ordinary  times.  Let  not  this  thought  seem  strange 
to  us;  let  us  not  imagine  it  as  a  limitation  of  God's 
Omnipotence.  For  God  Himself  works  by  means, 
and  takes  advantage  of  opportunities;  and  this 
wondrous  creation  of  His  is  so  utterly  one  in  Him, 
so  mystically  inter-related,  that  as  the  stars  move 
through  their  courses  there  are  certain  times  when 
certain  energies  are  more  readily  available  than  at 
others — when  the  bridges  are  clear,  the  channels  are 
open;  and  Christmas  is  such  a  time.  These  special 
occasions,  these  great  festivals,  are  not  mere  com- 
memorations; they  indicate  definite  actions  on  the 
part  of  the  Living  Christ  Who  is  the  Head  of  His 
Church.  All  the  members  of  the  Church  are  mem- 
bers of  Christ,  and  are  definitely  linked  to  Him 
through  baptism  and  through  confirmation,  and  still 
more  through  the  most  holy  Sacrament  of  His  Love; 
so  they  are  always  to  some  extent  under  His  in- 


56  The  Christian  Festivals 

fluence.  But  He  has  ordained  certain  methods  for 
the  pouring  down  of  His  influence  upon  His  Church, 
and  the  greatest  of  all  is  the  Sacrament  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist.  Therefore  there  are  special  times  and 
special  conditions  under  which  the  outpouring  is 
more  definitely  available.  Always,  everyone  of  us 
is  in  link  with  the  Christ,  and  yet  we  all  know  that 
we  are  more  closely  linked  with  Him — that  the  link 
is  more  alive,  is  more  vivid — when  we  come  to  His 
Church,  when  we  kneel  before  His  very  Presence 
in  the  Bread  and  Wine  which  He  has  chosen  to  be 
His  vehicle,  through  which  He  represents  Himself 
to  our  outward  senses. 

Just  in  the  same  way  as  that  is  a  more  intimate 
Presence  than  the  Presence  which  is  always  with  us, 
so  have  we  an  extraordinary  outpouring  of  power  at 
certain  times  and  seasons.  There  is  definitely  a 
greater,  a  more  universally  assimilable  outpouring 
on  such  days  as  Christmas,  Easter,  the  Ascension, 
Whitsunday,  Trinity  Sunday;  each  of  these  has  its 
own  special  character.  Such  a  day  as  this  great 
Feast  of  Christmas  is  a  real  opportunity  for  each  one 
of  us,  for  there  is  a  stronger  and  more  definite  out- 
flow of  divine  power  then,  just  because  the  whole 
world  is  more  prepared  to  receive  it, 

It  is  well  for  the  student  to  cast  aside  old  pre- 
conceptions and  prejudices  and  make  a  determined 
effort  to  understand  the  principle  which  underlies 
the  whole  of  this  question  of  the  effusion  of  helpful 
force  from  higher  planes.  That  principle  is  simple 
and  scientific,  but  most  people  have  to  rearrange 
their  thought  upon  religious  matters  before  they 
can  grasp  it.  Stupendous  as  is  the  force  available 
for  the  spiritual  helping  of  man,  it  is  nevertheless 


Christmas  57 

an  absolute  and  immutable  law  that  it  shall  never 
be  wasted — that  it  shall  be  used  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. This  holds  good  at  all  levels.  In  the  most 
wonderful  Sacrament  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  we  have 
the  privilege  of  calling  in  great  Angels  to  help,  and 
the  central  point  of  the  whole  ceremony,  the  Con- 
secration, is  the  act  of  our  Lord  Himself  through 
the  Angel  of  the  Presence;  yet  the  whole  of  this  tre- 
mendous outpouring  is  made  dependent  upon  our 
initiative.  It  is  the  fact  that  a  priest  is  ready  to 
celebrate  which  gives  the  opportunity,  which  sets  all 
this  marvellous  celestial  machinery  in  motion,  which 
makes  it  (if  we  may  say  so  with  the  deepest  rever- 
ence) " worth  while"  for  our  Lord  and  for  His 
Angels  to  do  this  particular  thing  in  this  particular 
way.  The  Lord  Christ  is  a  great  official  of  the 
Hierarchy,  and  as  such  He  is  always  pouring  out 
those  wonderful  forces  at  His  own  high  level. 

It  is  an  axiom  that  the  highest  work  which  any 
one  can  do  is  especially  and  essentially  the  work 
appointed  for  him.  For  example,  those  of  us  who 
can  work  in  the  astral  world  spend  our  nights  in 
trying  to  do  the  work  of  invisible  helpers,  to  help 
people  in  sorrow  and  suffering.  We  want  to  do 
whatever  we  can.  Unquestionably  one  of  our 
Masters  or  one  of  the  great  saints  could  do  far  more 
in  such  work  than  any  of  us  can  do,  and  yet  he 
would  not  do  it,  because  he  can  do  a  hundred-fold 
more  effective  work  on  higher  planes,  and  the  fact 
that  he  can  do  that  work  marks  him  out  for  it, 
so  that  for  him  to  do  this  lower  work  would  be  a 
waste  of  force. 

If  a  man  takes  the  trouble  to  qualify  himself  to 
do  research  work  in  connection  with  a  great  univer- 


58  The  Christian  Festivals 

sity,  it  would  obviously  be  a  waste  of  his  force  to 
set  him  to  reap  a  field  or  mend  a  road,  even  though 
he  would  probably  do  it  better  and  more  intelli- 
gently than  the  people  to  whom  that  work  is  usually 
assigned;  but  it  is  obviously  best  for  the  community 
as  a  whole  that  each  man  should  be  doing  his 
highest  work. 

That  holds  good  all  the  way  through.  For  the 
World-Teacher,  "Who  can  wield  powers  beyond  those 
of  any  other  of  the  Masters  or  saints,  it  would  be 
a  waste  of  time  to  do  the  work  which  they  are 
habitually  doing,  because  He  can  do  something  far 
grander  still.  Therefore  it  is  best  that  each  Master 
and  saint  should  do  the  work  he  can  do,  and  that 
above  him  the  World-Teacher  should  be  doing  His 
best  work,  and  down  here  we  should  be  doing  such 
work  as  at  our  level  we  can  do.  There  is  only  one 
point  of  view  that  the  Great  Ones  hold  with  regard 
to  work,  and  that  is  that  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  it  shall  be  done  under  the  most  economical  con- 
ditions, so  that  the  power  may  go  further. 

The  Lord  would  not  turn  aside  from  the  higher 
work  He  is  doing,  in  order  to  do  anything  that  we 
can  do,  unless  it  were  made,  profitable  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  progress  of  the  whole  that  He 
should  do  that.  If  the  world  is  to  be  helped,  certain 
work  must  be  done  at  the  lower  levels  as  well  as 
at  the  higher.  For  Him  to  force  His  power  through 
from  above  into  the  world  below  would  mean  a 
great  outlay  of  His  energy,  and  economically  the 
result  produced  would  not  be  ''worth  His  while/' 
if  we  may  Venture  to  put  it  so.  He  could  do  far 
more  with  the  same  amount  of  force  at  the  higher 
level;  but  if  we  provide  the  channels  for  Him,  it  is 


Christmas  59 

" worth  His  while"  to  do  the  work  through  us,  be- 
cause a  little  force  from  above  can  do  a  great  deal 
down  here  if  the  channel  is  provided  for  it. 

"When  the  congregation  of  a  church  provides  the 
love,  devotion  and  enthusiasm  with  which  the  won- 
derful eucharistic  edifice  can  be  built,  it  is  worth  the 
while  of  the  great  Angels  to  come  down  and  help, 
because  the  material  is  already  given.  It  would  not 
be  worth  their  while,  so  closely  are  these  things 
balanced,  if  they  had  to  provide  the  material  on 
the  lower  plane,  for  that  would  be  to  them  a  great 
trouble,  because  a  descent  into  physical  matter  would 
be  necessary;  it  would  not  be  an  economical  use  of 
their  power.  But  when  we  provide  the  material,  it 
is  "worth  their  while"  to  intensify  it;  after  they 
have  raised  and  intensified  it,  it  then  becomes 
"worth  the  while"  of  the  Christ  to  make  a  tre- 
mendous outpouring  of  His  power;  but  it  would  not 
be  economical  for  Him  to  do  this  unless  these  con- 
ditions had  been  provided. 

What  I  have  written  above  about  the  eucharistic 
service  is  equally  true  of  the  special  outpouring  of 
divine  energy  at  these  great  festivals.  On  the 
higher  level  the  divine  force  is  ever  streaming  forth 
and  doing  its  appointed  work ;  when  men  are  to  an 
unusual  degree  ready  to  take  advantage  of  it,  it  be- 
comes "worth  while"  to  transmute  a  large  amount 
of  this  force  that  it  may  be  applicable  to  the  lower 
level.  So  once  more  the  initiative  is  left  with  us; 
when  we  provide  the  conditions,  advantage  is  at 
once  taken  of  them. 

The  sun  is  always  shining,  but  he  is  not  always 
visible  to  us  on  earth,  because  earth-made  clouds 
get  in  the  way  and  shut  him  out.  Just  so  the  divine 


60  The  Christian  Festivals 

Christ  is  always  pouring  forth,  but  we  sometimes 
make  our  own  clouds,  which  get  in  the  way  and 
prevent  that  divine  power  from  influencing  our 
lives  for  the  time.  That  is  not  the  fault  of  the 
Christ,  but  our  fault.  And  so  in  His  lovingkindness 
— because  there  are  so  many  of  His  people  who  are 
not  yet  able  to  touch  these  higher  planes,  far  above 
all  earthly  clouds,  where  the  sunlight  of  His  Pre- 
sence is  always  vivid — He  has  arranged  times  when 
it  shall  be  easier  for  men  to  draw  closer  to  Him.  If 
we  but  knew  it,  we  are  all  close  to  Him  always,  but 
still  we  feel  it  more  at  certain  times  than  at  others. 

When  any  one  man  is  in  a  condition  of  great  love, 
great  devotion,  great  happiness,  he  sends  up  what 
is  very  literally  a  spire  of  devotion,  and  that  breaks 
through  into  the  higher  planes,  and  there  comes 
down  upon  that  man  a  response  of  love  and  bless- 
ing commensurate  with  his  own  feeling.  Some 
people  might  say,  not  understanding:  "But  why 
should  not  such  an  outpouring  come  always?''  Be- 
cause he  is  not  always  ready  to  receive  it.  I  sup- 
pose that  it  might  have  been  so  arranged  in  nature 
that  the  sun  should  be  strong  enough  to  lick  up 
and  drive  away  any  possible  cloud.  I  do  not  know 
that  it  would  have  been  a  good  thing  for  agricul- 
ture if  that  had  been  so;  at  any  rate,  that  is  not  the 
plan  upon  which  the  world  is  working.  The  clouds 
do  not  keep  back  the  whole  of  the  life,  the  strength, 
that  is  being  poured  out  by  the  sun;  they  keep  back 
just  a  part  of  it,  and  a  larger  part  of  his  light,  but 
not  the  force  which  keeps  his  worlds  alive;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  his  great  prototype,  the  Lord 
Himself.  When  a  man  breaks  through  his  self- 
made  clouds  he  is  able  to  receive  this  downpouring 


Christmas  61 

of  divine  blessing;  otherwise  he  would  not  be  able 
to  receive  it,  it  would  have  to  be  forced  upon  him, 
and  that  is  not  God's  way  of  dealing  with  man. 
He  never  forces  Himself  upon  us.  There  is  very 
good  reason  for  that;  it  would  not  help  our  evolu- 
tion if  He  did.  That  is  the  law,  and  if  we  want 
to  receive  His  grace  we  must  lay  ourselves  open  to 
its  influence.  An  individual  can  do  that  to  some 
extent;  but  when  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
people  all  combine  to  do  it,  we  see  at  once  how  great 
an  opportunity  there  is  for  this  downpouring  of 
what  we  must  call  Grace,  Strength,  Power  and  Love, 
which  is  always  streaming  forth. 

Christmas  is  a  time  when  that  opportunity  is  near 
and  vivid;  but  the  extent  to  which  we  can  avail 
ourselves  of  it  depends  upon  several  factors.  First, 
and  most  of  all,  it  depends  upon  how  far  the  Christ- 
mas spirit  has  entered  our  hearts.  If  we  are  filled 
with  the  peace  and  goodwill  of  Christmas,  the  good- 
will of  the  Christ  Himself  can  reach  our  hearts. 

It  depends  also  upon  how  far  we  have  used  the 
season  of  Advent  as  a  special  time  of  preparation. 
There  are  certain  virtues  which  we  should  have 
tried  to  cultivate  within  us,  certain  vices  we  should 
have  repressed;  if  this  has  been  done,  we  are  the 
more  ready  to  take  advantage  of  this  great  seasonal 
outpouring  of  definite  power.  Be  sure  that  this 
power  is  a  real  thing.  What  we  sometimes  call  the 
grace  of  God  is  just  as  definite  and  as  real  a  force 
as  electricity  or  steam;  but  it  is  dealing  with  higher 
matter.  To  say  that  is  not  to  materialize  a  spiritual 
conception;  it  is  rather  an  effort  to  bring  a  great 
truth  down  to  our  comprehension,  to  make  it  clear 
and  real  to  us.  We  are  material  creatures;  we  still 


62  The  Christian  Festivals 

have  bodies;  not  only  the  physical  body  which  all 
see,  but  the  emotional  body  and  the  mental  body. 
But  all  of  those  are  material.  There  is  a  spirit 
which  lies  behind  it  all — a  spirit  which  none  can  see, 
which  none  can  touch;  but  that  is  far  above  us  yet, 
and  when  we  can  realize  it  perfectly,  we  shall  be 
hid  with  Christ  in  God.  But  now,  and  in  the  mean- 
time, we  live  in  bodies;  and  it  is  through  and  by 
means  of  these  bodies  that  we  must  be  affected. 
Therefore  the  Christ  Himself  pours  down  influence 
veiled  in  material  forms  in  order  that  it  may  help 
us.  Otherwise  it  would  pass  above  us  and  beyond 
us,  and  to  us  would  be  as  though  it  were  not.  And 
so  He  sets  apart  certain  times  such  as  Christmas  in 
which  this  outpouring  may  descend  to  the  lower  level 
and  more  readily  influence  us;  He  sets  apart  certain 
places — such  as  His  churches — in  which  we  may  be 
more  readily,  more  easily  reached. 

Any  man,  anywhere,  may  touch  the  Christ-Spirit 
just  in  so  far  as  the  soul  within  him  (which  is  the 
real  man)  is  attuned  to  that  Christ-Spirit.  But  the 
specially  consecrated,  specially  magnetized  places 
which  are  set  apart  for  His  service  make  that  work 
easier,  for  their  influence  is  intended  to  bring  us 
into  a  condition  in  which  we  can  receive  that  help 
from  on  high.  We  have  only  to  think  it  over  with 
common  sense  and  with  reason,  and  we  shall  see  that 
that  must  be  so.  A  church  is  one  of  the  places  set 
apart  for  His  service;  Christmas  is  one  of  those  oc- 
casions on  which  it  is  easier  for  all  to  draw  nigh 
to  Him. 

Let  us  try  to  realize,  then,  that  Christmas  Day  is 
a  personal  opportunity  for  each  one  of  us;  that  we 
are  not  merely  repeating  an  old  formula  when  we 


Christmas  63 

sing:  "Unto  us  a  Child  is  born;  unto  us  a  Son  is 
given.''  There  is  actually  a  definite  outpouring  of 
that  divine  force  for  each  member  of  His  Church, 
and  the  extent  to  which  we  can  partake  of  it,  the 
amount  that  we  may  gain  from  it,  is  limited  only 
by  our  power  to  receive.  Christ  is  unlimited,  and 
His  power  overshines  the  whole  world.  What  we 
each  can  gain  from  this  is  our  affair;  it  is  in  our 
own  hands.  Let  us  open  our  hearts  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Christ-Child,  to  the  spirit  of  Christmas,  and 
that  Christ- Child  will  fill  our  hearts  with  His  joy 
and  His  peace. 

In  addition  to  this,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  the  preparation  is  made  not  by  ourselves 
alone  on  the  physical  plane,  for  on  all  great  festi- 
vals vaster  crowds  of  Angels  gather  round  our 
altars,  and  the  outpouring  is  assuredly  greater  in 
consequence.  Each  Sunday  Angels  cluster  round 
every  celebration,  for  a  certain  section  of  that  glori- 
ous Order  has  taken  it  as  its  specific  task  to  dis- 
pense this  force  in  connection  with  the  Christian 
Church;  but  on  such  days  as  Christmas,  Easter, 
Ascension  Day  or  Pentecost,  not  only  that  section  is 
in  action,  but  for  the  moment  almost  all  their  Angel 
brethren  concentrate  themselves  on  this  special 
branch  of  the  work.  Naturally  that  is  true  not  of 
the  Christian  religion  only,  but  of  other  religions  as 
well;  for  example,  on  the  great  Wesak  Festival  of 
the  Buddhists  it  may  be  said  that  almost  the  entire 
heavenly  host  is  temporarily  concentrated  upon 
work  in  connection  with  that.  So  it  will  be  seen 
that  there  is  reason  for  the  insistence  of  our  Church 
on  the  importance  of  observing  the  ecclesiastical 
seasons,  and  reason  also  for  the  special  request  made 


64  The  Christian  Festivals 

in  the  prayer-book  of  the  Church  of  England  that 
all  its  people  shall  communicate  at  least  three  times 
every  year,  of  which  Easter  shall  be  one. 

7.  Finally,  there  is  an  aspect  of  Christmas  as  a 
season  of  rejoicing,  apart  from  its  religious  side — 
if  anything  connected  with  it  can  ever  be  apart 
from  that.  This  is  the  aspect  which  is  so  prominent 
in  the  works  of  Charles  Dickens,  who  paints  it 
always  as  the  feast  of  good  fellowship.  The  Eng- 
lish-speaking world  owes  much  to  Dickens  for  the 
lessons  he  taught  about  Christmas. 

It  is  a  time  of  peace  to  men  of  goodwill,  and 
surely  at  that  time  we  all  try  to  be  men  of  good- 
will; and  it  is  remarkable  how  nearly  a  great  many 
people  succeed.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing,  this  Christ- 
mas spirit,  this  real  feeling  of  brotherhood  that  is 
spread  abroad  on  that  day.  There  is  a  greater  good- 
will, a  greater  kindliness  and  comradeship,  a  truer 
brotherhood  on  Christmas  Day  than  all  the  rest  of 
the  year.  It  should  not  be  for  Christmas  only,  of 
course;  we  should  have  that  feeling  always;  but 
since  we  are  overwhelmed  by  the  noise  and  tumult 
of  the  world,  since  we  cannot  yet  all  of  us  feel  that 
noble  Christmas  heartiness  all  the  while,  it  is  at 
least  a  good  thing  that  there  should  be  one  day  when 
all  the  world  agrees  to  feel  it,  when  every  man  tries 
to  come  as  near  as  he  can  to  the  brotherhood  which 
ought  to  exist  all  the  year  round.  Assuredly  it  is 
well,  too,  that  we  should  endeavour  to  impart  our 
joy  to  others — that  a  goodly  custom  should  have 
sprung  up  whereby  on  Christmas  Day  the  poor  and 
the  needy  are  helped  towards  the  realization  of  the 
great  brotherhood  of  humanity,  for  our  Christmas 
joy  can  be  perfect  only  in  so  far  as  we  share  it  with 


Christmas  65 

others    less    fortunately    circumstanced    than    our- 
selves. 

So  let  Christmas  enter  into  our  hearts  and  into 
our  souls,  and  let  us  try,  everyone  of  us,  to  feel 
then  what  the  Angels  sang  so  long  ago — -first  "  glory 
to  God  in  the  highest,"  and  then  no  less  "peace  on 
earth  and  goodwill  to  all  men." 


CHAPTEK  III 
NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

There  is  no  especial  reason  why  January  1st 
should  be  chosen  as  the  beginning  of  a  year,  but  it  is 
the  day  usually  adopted  by  all  the  nations  who  have 
inherited  the  great  Roman  civilization.  The  Hindus 
and  Buddhists  choose  quite  a  different  day;  and,  in 
fact,  one  day  may  be  taken  just  as  well  as  another, 
because  the  earth  is  steadily  moving  in  its  orbit 
round  the  sun  all  the  time,  and  in  the  endless  line 
of  that  ellipse  there  is  no  reason  to  choose  one  point 
as  a  beginning  more  than  any  other — unless  it  were 
perhaps  the  aphelion,  the  point  at  which  the  earth, 
having  reached  its  greatest  distance  from  the  sun, 
turns  and  begins  its  approach. 

New  Year's  Day  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  an  ec- 
clesiastical festival;  for  us  in  the  Church  Advent 
Sunday  is  the  beginning  of  our  year,  and  January 
1st  is  merely  what  is  called  the  octave  of  Christmas, 
for  we  do  not  commemorate  the  alleged  circumcision. 
The  outpouring  of  force  in  connection  with  some  of 
our  festivals  is  so  great  that  we  find  that  it  cannot 
be  adequately  dealt  with,  and  that  full  advantage 
cannot  be  taken  of  it,  in  one  day;  and  so  the  Church 
lias  adopted  the  plan  of  devoting  a  week  to  such 
feasts.  She  carries  on  the  celebration  until  the 
eighth  day,  which  is  called  the  octave,  and  any  day 
during  that  week  is  described  as  within  the  octave. 

In  mediaeval  times  all  business  stopped  for  each- 
of  the  great  ecclesiastical  festivals,  and  the  day  was 
given  up  entirely  to  observing  it  in  what  was  con- 

66 


New  Yeafs  Dai;  67 

sidered  a  proper  manner.  There  are  still  a  few 
countries  in  the  world  where  this  is  done,  but  they 
are  hardly  in  the  forefront  as  far  as  material  wealth 
and  modern  progress  are  concerned.  Most  nations 
are  far  too  hurried,  too  material,  too  breathless  in 
the  excitement  of  the  mad  race  after  wealth,  to 
stop  their  whole  machinery  at  irregular  intervals  in 
this  way;  but  they  have  grudgingly  admitted  the 
necessity  of  a  weekly  pause  in  their  activities,  which 
in  Christian  lands  comes  on  Sunday;  and  it  is  often 
only  on  that  day  that  people  have  leisure  to  attend 
a  religious  service.  The  plan  of  continuing  the  cele- 
bration of  an  important  day  for  a  week  ensures  that 
at  least  one  Sunday  shall  occur  within  the  sphere  of 
its  influence,  so  that  an  opportunity  of  sharing  to 
some  extent  in  its  special  downpouring  shall  be 
offered  to  every  member  of  the  Church.  So  on  New 
Year's  Day  our  thoughts  are  still  turned  to  the  great 
festival  of  Christmas,  and  all  that  it  means  to  us. 

Nevertheless,  the  Church  is  always  ready  to  take 
up  any  occasion  in  civil  life  in  which  her  people  are 
rightly  and  innocently  interested,  and  to  give  it  her 
blessing.  Therefore,  on  the  first  day  of  a  new  year 
we  gather  together  in  the  house  of  God  to  pay  Him 
worship,  and  to  take  part  in  the  great  Sacrament 
which  He  has  ordained.  Surely  there  is  no  better 
way  to  begin  the  new  year  than  this.  I  know  well 
that  many  people  in  our  great  cities  have  to  work 
hard,  that  holidays  are  comparatively  rare  for  them, 
and  that  when  they  get  one  they  need  rest,  change 
and  fresh  air;  yet  for  all  that,  I  think  they  do  well 
who  gather  in  church  to  begin  the  new  year  by 
dedicating  it  to  our  Lord.  It  is  well  to  spare  a  little 
time  from  our  enjoyment  in  order  that  we  may  come 


68  The  Christian  Festivals 

before   Him   and  express   our   thankfulness  for  the 
past,  our  confidence  for  the  future. 

Most  people  who  think  at  all  seriously  of  the  new 
year  regard  it  as  an  occasion  for  the  making  of  good 
resolutions — for  a  sort  of  mental  and  moral  stock- 
taking; they  look  back  upon  their  resolves  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  previous  year,  and  usually  have  to 
note  with  regret  that  there  has  been  a  certain  gap 
between  promise  and  performance.  Such  contem- 
plation is  no  doubt  salutary;  but  it  is  useless  to 
waste  time  in  vain  lamentation  or  repentance.  Note 
the  error  by  all  means,  but  do  not  worry  over  it; 
one  of  our  great  Masters  has  said  that  the  only  re- 
pentance which  is  worth  anything  at  all  is  the  resolve 
not  to  do  it  again. 

In  making  our  resolutions  for  the  new  year  we 
as  Liberal  Catholics  (and  therefore,  I  hope,  earnest 
students  of  the  divine  plan)  must  inevitably  fix  our 
eyes  upon  the  final  goal  that  is  set  before  us.  We 
all  know  that  it  is  our  duty  to  progress;  we  know 
that  we  are  intended  to  grow  better  as  we  grow 
older.  There  is  a  mighty  scheme  of  evolution  of 
which  we  are  a  part.  We  all  came  forth  from  God, 
and  to  God  we  must  all  return.  People  sometimes 
wonder  why,  if  that  be  so,  all  this  striving  for 
development  is  necessary;  if  we  were  divine  in  the 
beginning,  can  we  be  more  than  divine  at  the  end? 
Is  there  any  real  progress?  There  is,  for  we  came 
forth  from  God,  as  it  were,  a  nebulosity;  we  came 
forth  from  Him  mere  sparks — albeit  divine  sparks; 
we  have  to  return  to  Him  as  great  and  glorious 
lights,  as  veritable  suns  radiating  His  glory  on  all 
around  us,  shedding  help  and  blessing  on  those  who 
come  in  our  way.  We  go  back  again  to  the  same 


New  Year's  Day  69 

God  from  Whom  we  came  forth,  but  we  return  to 
Him  at  an  infinitely  higher  level. 

If  we  could  imagine  (it  may  be  true  for  anything 
we  know)  any  scheme  by  which  each  cell  in  our  body 
could  personally  evolve  and  become  a  man — become 
the  soul  of  a  man — we  should  not  say  that  in  attain- 
ing humanity  that  cell  had  made  no  progress,  because 
it  had  been  a  human  cell  to  start  with.  We  should 
feel  that  it  had  made  the  most  astounding,  the  most 
enormous  progress.  That  is  only  an  analogy,  and  a 
rough  one ;  but  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in 
it,  for  there  is  quite  that  much  of  difference  be- 
tween what  we  have  been  and  what  we  shall  be, 
and  we  may  well  have  been  cells  in  some  divine  gar- 
ment in  some  embodiment  or  manifestation. 

To  Him  we  must  return  verily  as  gods  ourselves. 
The  object  of  the  whole  of  this  strange  and  mighty 
evolution  was  expressed  by  the  Gnostics  in  this  way: 
"God,"  they  said,  "is  Love;  but  love  itself  cannot 
be  made  perfect  unless  there  are  those  upon  whom 
it  can  be  lavished,  and  by  whom  it  may  be  returned; 
therefore  God  Himself  can  express  Himself  more 
fully,  more  perfectly,  when  we  rise  to  the  Divine, 
when  He  can  pour  out  the  splendid  flood  of  His 
love  upon  us,  and  we  in  our  smaller  way  can 
definitely,  clearly  return  it.M 

Our  progress  is  a  necessity  to  the  perfection  of 
the  evolution  of  this  great  system  of  which  we  form 
a  part;  therefore  we  ought  definitely  to  be  making 
some  advancement  both  in  knowledge  and  in  char- 
acter each  year  as  it  goes  by.  Most  of  us  are  busi- 
ness people,  and  our  time  is  fully  occupied;  but  we 
must  not  for  a  moment  think  that  because  of  that 


70  The  Christian  Festivals 

there  is  no  opportunity  for  us  to  evolve.  In  the 
course  of  that  business  we  are  constantly  meeting 
various  people,  and  our  attitude  towards  them  is  of 
the  greatest  importance.  We  can  treat  them  well, 
kindly,  gently  and  good-naturedly,  or  we  can  treat 
them  otherwise — carelessly,  selfishly,  without  due 
regard  to  their  rights  and  feelings.  It  is  certain 
that  as  we  do  one  or  the  other,  so  shall  we  ourselves 
improve  or  deteriorate,  as  the  case  may  be.  It  is  in 
daily  life  that  we  have  the  greatest  opportunity  of 
changing  our  character.  Many  a  man  has  confessed 
to  me  that  he  has  a  bad  temper,  regretting  it,  but 
regarding  it  apparently  as  a  fact  in  nature  which  he 
could  not  alter.  He  seemed  to  think  of  it  as  some 
kind  of  dangerous  animal  which  he  had  to  keep  and 
make  the  best  he  could  of  it.  No  doubt  there  are 
men  who  have  a  bad  temper,  who  are  readily  irri- 
table; but  that  is  not  because  it  is  natural  to  man 
to  have  a  bad  temper,  but  because  in  their  case  the 
astral  or  emotional  body  likes  excitement  and  dis- 
turbance, and  is  quite  willing  to  take  it  in  that  way. 
That  astral  body  has  a  life  of  its  own,  and  for  its 
own  purposes  it  eggs  the  man  on  to  irritability.  Not 
that  it  is  malignant,  and  wants  to  harm  him;  it  is 
doubtful  whether  it  even  knows  of  his  existence; 
but  because  it  desires  to  stir  up  its  surroundings  in 
order  that  it  may  have  the  pleasurable  excitement 
of  rapid  and  stormy  vibrations.  If  we  find  that  we 
are  irritable,  it  means  that  in  past  lives  we  have 
yielded  ourselves  to  this  emotion;  we  have  not  stood 
strongly  against  it  and  realized  that  it  was  our  busi- 
ness to  control  it.  It  is  never  too  late  to  change, 
however;  because  in  other  lives  we  did  not  quite 
understand  our  power  to  dominate  the  emotion,  the 


New  Year's  Day  71 

thing  has  a  certain  hold  (perhaps  a  very  strong 
hold)  on  us;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  at  once  begin  to  try  to  grip  it. 

We  shall  have  to  do  it  some  time  or  other,  for 
until  we  have  done  so  we  can  never  attain  that  which 
God  means  us  to  attain.  If  we  have  cultivated  a 
certain  habit  (a  bad  habit,  perhaps)  for  the  last 
twenty  thousand  years  or  so  during  several  past 
lives,  it  will  take  some  time  to  break  that  habit,  be- 
cause of  the  impetus  behind  it.  Yet  we  should  go 
to  work  at  it  at  once.  We  may  fail;  we  may  fall 
a  hundred  times,  but  we  should  remember  that  there 
is  exactly  the  same  reason  for  getting  up  and  going 
on  at  the  end  of  the  hundredth  failure  as  there  was 
at  the  beginning.  Since  the  reason  remains  exactly 
the  same,  as  sensible  people  we  must  get  up  and  go 
on.  It  is  useless  to  sit  down  and  say  that  we  have 
tried  so  many  times,  and  we  cannot  do  it.  We  have 
to  do  it;  others  have  done  it,  and  so  can  we;  it  is 
simply  a  question  of  determination  and  per- 
severance. 

Let  me  explain  why  it  is  certain  that  we  can  suc- 
ceed in  the  end.  However  much  force  a  habit  has 
generated,  it  must  be  a  finite  amount  of  force. 
Though  it  has  had  a  long  time  in  which  to  gain  that 
strength,  it  cannot  have  gained  an  infinite  amount. 
What  we  have  to  fight,  therefore,  is  a  certain  definite 
amount  of  force.  We  do  not  know  how  much  of 
it  remains;  there  may  still  be  a  good  deal  left,  or 
our  efforts  to  conquer  it  may  have  so  far  reduced 
it  that  we  may  be  on  the  very  brink  of  success.  We 
are  in  the  position  of  a  person  trying  to  dig  his 
way  out  of  prison — he  never  knows  at  what  moment 
the  last  stroke  of  his  pick  may  open  out  the  way  for 


72  The  Christian  Festivals 

him  and  give  him  the  promise  of  freedom,  but  he 
knows  that  that  moment  must  come  if  he  goes  on 
long  enough.  This  conquest  of  evil  is  perfectly 
possible.  It  can  be  done,  and  it  will  be  done.  It  is 
only  a  question  of  how  long  we  are  going  to  let  it 
take  us. 

What  resolutions  then  shall  we  set  before  our- 
selves for  the  new  year?  It  seems  a  suggestive  fact 
that,  as  I  have  already  said,  New  Year's  Day  is  the 
octave  of  Christmas;  so  one  resolution  might  well  be 
that  we  will  try  to  carry  on  through  the  whole  of 
the  year  the  Christmas  spirit. 

If  during  Christmas  we  have  been  more  kindly, 
more  ready  to  help,  more  friendly,  more  ready  to  see 
the  best  and  not  the  worst  in  everything,  let  us  go 
on  taking  the  same  attitude  all  the  year  around. 
Let  us  have  the  same  feelings,  the  same  uplifting, 
the  same  realization.  I  think  it  often  seems  to  us 
that  we  are  quite  willing  to  be  brotherly,  but  that 
other  men  will  not  meet  us  half-way.  If  we  find 
that  so,- it  does  not  alter  our  duty;  it  takes  two 
people  to  make  a  quarrel,  so  we  should  continue  our 
brotherly  feeling;  if  the  other  poor  man  does  not 
understand  and  return  it,  that  is  exclusively  his  busi- 
ness. It  is  unfortunate  for  him,  but  really  it  does 
not  harm  us,  as  we  shall  see  if  we  only  think  clearly 
about  it. 

We  should  always  remember  that  no  harm  can 
come  to  us  except  from  ourselves.  Other  people 
may  say  offensive  things  to  us  or  about  us;  they 
may  attack  us  in  various  ways;  but,  after  all,  that 
need  not  make  any  difference  to  our  feelings  unless 
we  like  to  let  it.  What  are  words?  Only  vibrations 
of  the  air.  If  we  never  heard  of  what  the  other  man 


New  Year's  Dai;  73 

has  said,  we  should  not  be  in  the  least  disturbed 
about  it;  but  because  we  happen  to  hear  of  it,  we 
excite  ourselves  unduly  and  feel  offended  and  hurt. 
Think  of  the  facts  as  they  really  are.  Somebody 
slanders  you;  he  has  acted  the  devil's  part,  for  the 
devil  is  the  accuser  of  the  brethren;  he  has  spewed 
forth  his  drop  of  venom,  and  done  his  filthy  little 
best  to  poison  God's  sweet  air;  but  if  you  hear  no- 
thing of  it  you  go  serenely  on  your  way;  his  despic- 
able crime  leaves  you  entirely  unaffected.  But  if 
you  hear  of  the  falsehood  you  are  disturbed.  The 
villain  has  done  no  more  now  than  he  had  before, 
when  you  were  quite  at  ease;  the  change  is  in  your- 
self, and  the  mistake  you  have  made  is  that  you 
allow  yourself  to  mind — to  remember  and  to  brood 
over  a  foul  thing  which  should  be  forgotten. 

The  Lord  Buddha  taught  that  Right  Memory  is 
one  of  the  steps  of  the  Noble  Eightfold  Path  which 
leads  to  bliss.  Each  of  these  steps  has  many  inter- 
pretations at  different  levels  of  thought;  but  of  this 
one  the  straightforward  meaning  is  that  we  should 
know  what  to  remember  and  what  to  forget.  The 
theory  is  that  one  should  be  able  to  control  one's 
memory — to  remember  that  which  is  pleasant  and 
useful,  and  to  forget  that  which  is  useless  and  unde- 
sirable. Really  to  forget;  to  let  it  be  just  as  though 
the  wicked  libel  had  never  been  spoken,  or  as  though 
we  had  never  heard  it.  That  is  a  hard  thing  to  do 
— not  because  the  real  self,  the  soul,  wishes  to  re- 
member such  an  abomination,  but  because  the  astral 
body,  one  of  the  vehicles  we  are  supposed  to  have 
controlled,  likes  a  little  excitement  and  tries  to  keep 
a  stormy  atmosphere.  We  must  recognize  that  fact, 
look  down  calmly  on  that  restive  vehicle,  and  say: 


74  The  Christian  Festivals 

"No,  I  shall  not  allow  you  to  upset  my  arrange- 
ments. I  intend  to  keep  the  New  Year  as  free  from 
your  little  interferences  as  I  can.  I  decline  to  be 
annoyed  because  an  ignorant  man  has  made  atrocious 
and  foolish  statements."  Ignorant  men  are  always 
making  foolish  statements  all  the  world  over,  and 
it  does  not  matter  in  the  least — except  to  them,  for 
it  makes  exceedingly  evil  karma  for  them. 

Let  us  make  this  New  Year  one  long  Christmas, 
so  that  the  Christ  may  truly  be  born  in  our  hearts, 
so  that  we  may  never  again  feel  un-Christlike.  That 
is  a  high  ideal  to  set  before  us,  and  of  course  some- 
times we  shall  forget.  But  let  us  go  on  again  and 
persevere  until  we  can  do  it.  It  is  supposed  to  be 
a  characteristic  of  our  race  that  we  stick  doggedly 
to  anything  we  have  undertaken  until  we  carry  it 
through.  Let  us  show  that  character  in  religion  as 
well  as  in  the  battle-field,  in  sport,  and  in  commerce. 
Let  us  show  it  in  the  real  life  that  lies  behind,  as 
well  as  in  that  of  the  outer  world. 

Through  the  year  which  is  opening  before  us 
let  us  earnestly  try  to  take  everything  in  the 
happiest  and  kindest  spirit — to  have  no  quarrels,  to 
take  no  offence,  to  make  it  a  year  of  true  brotherli- 
ness.  The  majority  of  people  in  the  present  day 
live  in  an  atmosphere  of  perpetual  misunderstand- 
ing of  others,  because  they  are  always  attributing 
motives  to  people  for  what  they  do  and  say.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  go  through  life  supposing  that  all 
those  round  us  are  constantly  thinking  of  us, 
and  that  everything  which  they  do  or  say  is 
definitely  calculated  in  some  way  with  relation  to 
us.  The  fact  is  quite  different;  each  person  is 
usually  looking  upon  his  surroundings  from  his 


New  Year's  Dai;  75 

own  point  of  view,  and  his  thoughts,  words  and 
actions  are  likely  to  be,  if  not  exactly  selfish,  at 
any  rate  self-centred.  Wherefore,  in  attributing 
motives  to  him,  we  often  do  him  grievous  wrong; 
and  we  do  it  because  of  the  fact  that  we  have 
cultivated  the  discriminating  mind  at  the  expense 
of  the  sympathizing  and  synthesizing  sense,  the 
intuitive  wisdom.  The  discriminating  intellect  is  a 
fine  thing  in  its  way,  and  I  am  not  suggesting  that 
we  have  too  much  of  it,  or  should  fail  to  develop 
it;  but  we  often  miscalculate  its  scope,  and  so  exag- 
gerate its  value  that  we  leave  no  room  for  faculties 
unquestionably  higher. 

Let  us  then  make  it  our  rule  to  watch  for  points 
of  agreement  rather  than  of  disagreement,  to  look 
for  pearls  rather  than  for  flaws;  to  try  to  find  in 
our  brethren  qualities  which  we  like,  rather  than  to 
overemphasize  those  which  we  happen  to  dislike.  Let 
us  make  each  year  a  year  of  fraternity,  of  sympathy 
and  of  mutual  understanding,  for  in  doing  that  we 
shall  go  far  towards  ensuring  that  it  shall  be  a  happy 
year,  not  only  for  ourselves,  but  for  others  around  us. 

There  seems  even  more  than  the  usual  need  for 
such  resolutions  at  this  period  of  the  world's  his- 
tory. Four  New  Years  have  recently  passed  in 
which  we  felt  but  little  joy,  for  we  were  in  the 
throes  of  a  great  world-war,  and  there  was  not  much 
to  encourage  our  firm  faith  that  all  in  the  end  must 
be  well.  There  were  those  of  us  who  knew  what  the 
end  would  be,  but  to  those  who  did  not  know  the 
outlook  must  often  have  seemed  dark  and  uncertain. 
Suddenly,  dramatically,  came  the  end  of  that  strife; 
that  alone  is  something  for  which  we  may  well  be 
thankful,  and  when  we  see  what  happened,  then 


76  The  Christian  Festivals 

we  surely  have  good  reason  not  only  for  thankful- 
ness to  our  Lord,  but  for  confidence  in  Him  that 
the  future  also  shall  go  well;  that  though  sometimes 
dark  clouds  may  rise,  yet  the  sunlight  of  His  glory 
will  in  the  end  always  triumph  over  them,  and  pro- 
gress will  be  made,  because  that  is  His  will,  and 
in  the  long  run  His  will  is  done  on  earth  even  as 
it  is  in  heaven.  So  we  have  good  reason  to  look 
forward  with  confidence  and  with  happiness. 

Yet  remember,  if  a  glorious  victory  was  won,  if 
we  received  in  that  way  great  encouragement,  a 
serious  responsibility  was  thereby  thrown  upon  us. 
There  is  to-day  an  unequalled  opportunity  for  re- 
arrangement in  many  different  ways.  These  years 
immediately  before  us  begin  a  new  age — an  age,  I 
hope,  in  which  men  will  learn  to  be  less  petty  and 
less  selfish,  to  take  a  wider  view,  to  act  not  for  self 
alone  (nor  even  for  that  magnified  self  which  is 
called  a  union,  a  body  of  people  all  belonging  to 
one  trade  or  one  business)  but  for  the  community 
as  a  whole;  not  for  one  class  or  party,  but  for  all. 

Much  of  the  success  of  that  future,  much  of  the 
extent  to  which  men  take  this  opportunity  that 
comes  before  us,  will  depend  upon  the  way  in  which 
we  think  and  speak  and  act.  Perhaps  few  of  us 
have  any  direct  influence;  that  is  in  the  hands  of 
politicians  and  party  leaders.  But  those  people, 
after  all,  are  chosen  by  us  among  others.  We  have 
something  to  say  in  the  matter,  and  we  can  use  our 
influence,  not  only  by  vote  but  by  word  and  by  deed, 
by  persuasion  and  by  example.  We  can  learn 
unselfishness  for  ourselves,  and  the  very  fact  that 
we  live  it  (so  far  as  we  can)  as  well  as  preach 
it,  will  give  our  words  great  weight  with  those 


New  Year's  Day  77 

around  us.  Every  one  of  us  has  someone  who  looks 
up  to  him  or  to  her — someone  who  takes  note  of  what 
he  or  she  says  or  does.  Whatever  influence  we  have, 
let  us  most  certainly  try  during  these  years  of  re- 
construction to  use  it  on  the  side  of  brotherhood,  to 
use  it  for  mutual  understanding  and  mutual  esteem. 

There  are  thousands  of  different  points  of  view; 
there  are  people  whose  ideas,  on  almost  any  subject 
of  which  we  can  think,  are  quite  different  from  our 
own.  The  natural  instinct  of  humanity  seems  to  be 
to  distrust  such  people  and  to  dislike  them;  and 
with  the  ignorant  and  the  uneducated  such  a  feel- 
ing of  mistrust  and  dislike  often  absolutely  increases 
into  hate.  Thus  arises  the  horrible  thing  we  call 
class-consciousness,  when  one  class  is  set  in  mad. 
indiscriminating  prejudice  against  another  class. 
We  cannot  doubt  that  there  has  been  reason  in  the 
past  for  one  class  to  distrust  the  other;  history 
shows  it.  Each  has  been  selfish,  each  has  worked 
only  for  itself.  Let  us  try  how  far  it  may  be  pos- 
sible now  to  co-operate,  and  to  induce  others  to  work 
towards  co-operation. 

The  system  of  disunion,  the  system  of  perpetual 
quarrelling  and  misunderstanding  and  suspicion  has 
been  tried  through  centuries,  and  it  has  not  been 
a  conspicuous  success.  Let  us  try  now  the  plan  of 
trusting  one  another  a  little  more — of  giving  every 
man  credit  for  the  good  intention  which  we  know 
that  we  ourselves  have.  Every  man  means  well  on 
the  whole;  he  thinks  first  of  himself  certainly — 
though  often  it  is  of  the  wife  and  the  children  as 
well  as  himself — but  if  facts  are  put  before  him  he 
is  usually  willing  to  act  sensibly  and  reasonably. 
In  many  cases  the  facts  are  not  put  before  him;  lje 


78  The  Christian  Festivals 

gets  only  a  distortion  of  the  truth,  and  because  of 
that  he  acquires  a  strong  conviction  that  everyone 
is  setting  his  hand  against  him,  or  is  trying  to  put 
upon  him  in  some  way  or  other,  and  the  result  is 
that  out  of  all  this  confusion,  suspicion  and  hatred 
are  born,  and  agreement  becomes  almost  impossible. 
Let  us  strive,  so  far  as  we  can,  towards  unity  and 
mutual  progress.  If  only  men  understood  one  an- 
other there  would  be  few  differences  of  this  savage 
nature.  Of  course,  as  now,  there  would  be  plenty 
of  differences  of  opinion,  but  not  differences  leading 
to  distrust.  A  great  Frenchman  once  said:  "Tout 
comprendre,  c'est  tout  pardonner."  "To  under- 
stand all  is  to  forgive  all."  We  see  a  man  doing 
something  which  to  us  seems  very  dreadful,  utterly 
improper,  dangerous  perhaps  to  ourselves  or  to 
others.  If  we  understood  exactly  why  that  man 
did  that  thing,  if  we  could  see  the  action  as  he 
sees  it,  we  might  not  in  the  least  agree  with  him, 
but  at  least  we  should  understand  him,  and  we 
should  forgive  him.  It  is  because  we  will  not  take 
the  trouble  to  understand  one  another  that  so  much 
suffering  comes  in  this  world.  If  each  one  would 
try  to  put  himself  in  the  other  man's  place,  as 
indeed  a  brother  should  do,  then  we  should  be  able 
to  make  allowance.  We  might  still  differ  from  him, 
but  we  should  meet  and  discuss  matters  with  him 
in  a  totally  different  spirit — in  a  spirit  which  would 
make  compromise  possible;  in  a  spirit  which  would 
enable  us  to  arrive  at  some  understanding,  to  have 
some  mutual  comprehension,  so  that  we  could  live 
together  as  brothers,  not  as  ravenous  animals  trying 
to  tear  one  another. 


New  Year's  Day  79 

Let  that  be  one  of  our  New  Year  thoughts — 
brotherly  love  and  mutual  comprehension.  Let  us 
try  to  understand;  then  we  shall  be  able  to  forgive, 
and  often  to  help.  There  is  a  story  told  in  one  of 
the  old  Jewish  books  that  Abraham  once,  when 
camping  in  the  desert,  was  accosted  late  at  night 
by  an  old  man  who  asked  him  for  shelter  and  food. 
Of  course  he  at  once  received  him,  as  men  do  in 
those  primitive  countries,  but  when  they  came  to  sit 
down  to  meat,  the  stranger  declined  to  join  with 
him  in  his  little  grace,  his  little  thanksgiving  to  God ; 
and  Abraham,  rising  angrily,  drove  the  man  forth 
without  food  or  rest,  saying  that  he  would  not  have 
in  his  tent  one  who  disbelieved  in  God.  But  that 
same  night  God  came  in  a  vision  to  Abraham,  and 
said:  " Where  is  the  stranger  whom  I  sent  to  be 
your  guest ?"  And  Abraham  replied  in  confusion: 
"Lord,  he  believed  not  in  Thee;  he  refused  to  give 
thanks;  so  I  drove  him  out  into  the  night. "  But 
God  said:  "I  have  borne  with  that  man  for  seventy 
years;  couldest  not  thou  bear  with  him  for  one 
night?"  God  bears  with  us  all,  because  He  under- 
stands us  all.  We  cannot  understand  as  He  does 
as  yet,  but  at  least  we  can  try;  and  be  very  sure 
that  the  nearer  we  come  to  understanding  and  mak- 
ing allowance,  the  nearer  we  come  to  Him  and  to 
His  Spirit. 

So  let  each  new  year  which  opens  before  us  be 
one  of  brotherly  love  and  of  mutual  understanding. 
Let  us  learn  to  co-operate  with  other  people,  and 
we  shall  already  have  achieved  a  long  step  on  the 
way  to  the  final  unity.  Only  in  that  way  can  we 
hope  for  truly  happy  New  Years;  not  years  with- 
out any  sorrow,  without  any  passing  cloud,  for  that 


80  The  Christian  Festivals 

cannot  be,  nor  indeed  would  such  perhaps  be  truly 
happy  years  for  us;  but  years  in  which  we  shall 
draw  ever  nearer  to  God,  Who  gives  us  these 
opportunities. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  EPIPHANY 

This  Feast  of  the  Epiphany  is  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  in  the  Christian  year.  It  is  in  the 
description  of  the  event  commemorated  by  it  that 
the  words  first  occur  which  are  so  well-known  to  us 
all:  "We  have  seen  His  Star  in  the  East  and  are 
come  to  worship  Him."  The  story  is  but  briefiy 
told  in  the  gospel;  we  hear  simply  that  there  came 
Wise  Men  from  the  East  to  Jerusalem  asking  where 
that  child  was  to  be  born  who  was  to  be  the  King 
of  the  Jews.  Since  the  Jewish  prophets  had 
selected  for  the  birth  of  the  Messiah  the  town  of 
Bethlehem,  the  Wise  Men  were  directed  to  go  there; 
and  it  is  said  that  on  the  way  the  Star,  which  had 
led  them  from  their  distant  homes,  again  appeared 
to  them  and  indicated  the  stable-cave  in  which  the 
child  Jesus  was  lying.  And  so  these  Wise  Men  went 
in  and  worshipped  the  Child,  and  offered  to  Him 
gold  and  frankincense  and  myrrh.  But  meantime 
Herod,  who  for  the  moment  held  the  position  of 
king  of  the  Jews,  was  somewhat  disturbed  to  hear 
of  another  claimant  to  that  office;  and  so  when  the 
Wise  Men  did  not  return  to  describe  their  adven- 
tures, he  sent  down  soldiers  to  Bethlehem,  and  tried 
to  ensure  the  removal  of  his  prospective  rival  by 
killing  all  the  children  under  the  age  of  two.  Mean- 
time the  Wise  Men  had  been  warned  in  a  dream  to 
avoid  him,  and  in  the  same  way  Joseph  and  Mary 
had  been  warned  to  remove  the  Child  out  of  his 
reach. 

81 


82  The  Christian  Festivals 

This  story,  so  simply  told  in  the  gospel,  becomes 
far  more  gorgeous,  though  perhaps  less  credible,  in 
ancient  ecclesiastical  tradition.  The  word  "Magi" 
or  Wise  Men  means  what  we  should  now  call  students 
of  the  inner  side  of  things,  and  this  would  certainly 
in  those  days  have  included  astrology;  so  in  that 
way  their  extreme  interest  in  an  unusual  star  is 
readily  explained.  According  to  the  tradition  these 
were  not  merely  men  of  learning,  but  kings,  each 
ruling  in  his  own  country.  The  legend  is  not  pre- 
cise as  to  the  location  of  the  countries;  but  the 
names  of  the  three  kings  are  given  as  Melchior,  Bal- 
thasar  and  Gaspar,  and  it  is  the  universal  tradition 
that  the  third  was  a  black  man — a  negro  from 
Africa.  The  suggestion  seems  to  be  that  Melchior 
and  Balthasar  were  rulers  of  Arabian  states;  but 
however  that  may  be,  it  is  stated  that  each  king  in 
his  own  place  saw  this  strange  new  Star,  and  decided 
to  set  out  upon  a  journey  to  see  what  it  might 
mean. 

According  to  this  legend  it  was  only  as  they 
approached  Jerusalem,  each  with  his  own  retinue, 
that  the  three  kings  met;  and  it  is  suggested  that 
the  arrival  of  these  parties,  all  in  warlike  array, 
created  much  doubt  and  excitement,  and  that  Herod 
sent  out  an  embassy,  as  they  drew  near  the  city,  to 
ask  their  intentions.  Then,  so  says  the  story,  hav- 
ing received  the  answer  to  their  question,  the  three 
kings  went  together  to  Bethlehem  with  only  a  few 
personal  attendants,  leaving  their  greater  retinues 
encamped  near  Jerusalem;  and  each  of  them  car- 
ried many  costly  gifts  to  offer  to  the  new-born  King. 
But  when  they  reached  the  cave  and  saw  the  little 
Child,  it  is  said  that  they  were  so  tremendously 


The  Epiphany  83 

impressed  by  the  magnetism  which  they  felt,  that 
they  were  altogether  overcome  with  awe,  and  instead 
of  offering  the  great  store  of  gifts  which  they^Tiad 
brought,  each  took  from  his  attendant  whatever  came 
nearest  to  hand,  laid  it  at  the  Child's  feet  and  re- 
tired with  precipitation.  And  so  it  happened  that 
Melchior  presented  a  golden  cup — fabled,  naturally 
enough,  to  have  been  preserved  by  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Mary  and  used  by  the  Christ  Himself  at  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Holy  Eucharist — while  Balthasar 
offered  a  golden  box  containing  rare  incense,  and 
Gaspar  a  curiously-chased  flask  containing  myrrh. 

The  Church  has  always  mystically  interpreted 
these  gifts,  saying  that  the  gold  showed  that  the  Child 
was  a  King,  that  the  offering  of  incense  denoted  His 
Godhead,  and  that  the  myrrh,  being  one  of  the 
spices  especially  used  for  sepulture,  was  a  kind  of 
prophecy  in  symbol  of  the  death  which  He  was  pre- 
sently to  die.  The  legend  puts  a  strange  interpreta- 
tion on  the  remark  in  the  gospel  narrative  that  the 
three  kings  returned  to  their  country  by  another 
way;  for  it  is  said  that  the  Star  appeared  to  them 
at  the  exact  moment  of  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and  yet 
that  they  arrived  at  Bethlehem  only  twelve  days 
later.  That  is  explained  by  the  statement  that  their 
way  was  in  some  manner  miraculously  smoothed  for 
them,  and  that  when  after  their  visit  they  under- 
took to  return,  they  found  that  their  journey  oc- 
cupied many  days  longer  than  they  had  taken  in 
coming.  Each,  so  the  old  story  tells  us,  was 
profoundly  and  permanently  affected  by  what  he 
had  seen;  they  all  agreed  together  to  resign  their 
respective  kingdoms,  and  to  devote  themselves 
entirely  to  the  religious  life.  The  legend  makes 


84  The  Christian  Festivals 

them  travel  together  through  many  countries  of  the 
then  known  world,  and  they  are  supposed  even- 
tually to  have  died  at  the  city  of  Cologne,  where 
their  tomb  is  still  shown. 

What  foundation  there  may  be  for  this  strange 
old  story  it  is  impossible  now  to  say;  but  at  least 
it  has  something  of  antique  beauty,  and  it  is  not 
without  interest  for  us  to  know  how  this  day  was 
regarded  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  cannot  guarantee 
it  as  history,  but  as  a  symbol  it  is  unexceptionable; 
for  those  who  are  the  true  Wise  Men,  those  who  are 
the  true  kings  among  the  souls  of  men,  always 
recognize  a  great  Teacher  when  He  comes ;  they  know 
Him  and  they  come  and  worship  Him,  and  they  offer 
all  that  they  have,  to  help  Him  in  the  work  which  He 
comes  to  do. 

Whether  they  were  kings  or  not,  it  is  at  least 
certain  that  the  Wise  Men  were  not  Jews;  and 
so  this  day  has  always  been  regarded  by  the 
Church  as  the  manifestation  of  Christ  to  the 
Gentiles — the  first  symbol  appearing  in  the  life 
of  the  Child  Jesus  to  show  that  His  mission  was 
not  to  His  own  people  alone,  but  to  the  world 
at  large.  The  World-Teacher  justified  His  title 
and  His  position  even  thus  in  the  very  begin- 
ning of  His  life  there  in  Judaea;  and  we  can  well 
understand  that  that  may  have  been  necessary.  For 
I  suppose  there  was  never  a  more  exclusive  race 
than  the  Jews;  and  since  He  Who  was  born  was 
of  the  seed  of  David,  from  which  they  hoped,  many 
of  them,  that  their  promised  Messiah  would  come, 
they  would  have  claimed  to  keep  Him  entirely  for 
themselves,  had  there  not  been  a  clear  and  decided 
indication  that  He  came  not  for  them  only,  but  for 


The  Epiphany  85 

the  world.  He  never  hesitated  Himself  to  say  that 
later  on  in  His  life,  but  it  is  at  least  significant  and 
beautiful  that  it  should  thus  have  been  indicated  at 
its  beginning — that  those  who  were  not  Jews  should 
share  in  His  worship  even  so  early  in  His  life  as 
this. 

Unfortunately  Christianity  has  inherited  a  great 
deal  from  the  Jews.  They  are  a  wonderful  race.  I 
should  be  the  last  to  seek  to  depreciate  them  and 
their  general  influence  in  the  world  in  any  way 
whatever,  but  the  Jew  of  to-day  is  not  by  any 
means  the  same  man  as  the  Jew  of  the  time  of  the 
Christ.  That  race,  like  all  other  races  in  the  world, 
has  risen  from  a  primitive  beginning  to  its  present 
state  of  civilization.  Every  nation  has  done  that;  we 
ourselves,  the  English  race,  are  in  the  habit  of 
thinking  ourselves  at  least  as  good  as  any  other,  but 
we,  too,  began  at  quite  a  low  level.  Our  ancestors 
were  not  a  highly  evolved  race;  no  doubt  they 
had  their  own  advantages  and  peculiarities,  but 
they  were  certainly  not  advanced.  Other  races 
mingled  with  them  to  make  this  strange  mixture 
which  we  now  call  English.  Along  with  this 
Keltic  race  came  the  Saxons,  the  Angles,  the  Jutes 
from  the  mainland,  but  none  of  them  were  highly 
civilized.  We  hear  of  them  roasting  oxen  whole 
and  tearing  them  to  pieces  with  their  hands, 
and  drinking  mightily  therewith.  They  were  not 
a  race  of  which  to  be  proud.  They  had  certain  bar- 
baric virtues;  they  were  brave  beyond  all  doubt; 
and  it  is  said  that  they  treated  women  well  when 
they  were  not  slaves.  Into  that  Anglo-Saxon  Keltic 
mixture  came  the  Norman  race,  and  that  was  some- 
what more  civilized  before  it  joined  the  rest;  but 


86  The  Christian  Festivals 

still  if  we  read  any  romance  of  mediaeval  times,  we 
shall  find  that  there  was  much  to  be  desired  in  the 
culture  of  our  country. 

That  is  the  way  with  every  race  in  the  world. 
The  great  Roman  race  that  was  so  justly  proud  of 
itself  arose  from  a  small  Latin  tribe;  so  we  need 
not  hesitate  to  admit  that  the  same  was  true  of  the 
Jews.  The  Jews  in  their  early  days  were  distinctly 
a  barbarous  tribe.  We  have  only  to  read  their 
scriptures,  which  contain  their  history,  to  see  that. 
We  shall  find  them  committing  terrible  crimes,  whole- 
sale massacres,  numerous  blood-sacrifices — all  sorts 
of  horrible  things  were  done  by  them,  and  according 
to  their  account  approved  by  their  deity,  which 
shows  that  they  were  dealing  with  a  tribal  god,  and 
not  a  great  deity  at  all. 

Certain  characteristics  of  the  Jews  were  intensely 
stamped  upon  them,  and  that  idea  of  being  a  chosen 
people  of  God  was  one  of  the  strongest.  That  is 
one  of  the  things  which  the  Christians  have  inherited 
from  them,  and  it  has  been  decidedly  unfortunate. 
If  we  could  only  have  accepted  the  Christ  as  the 
Founder  of  His  religion  and  not  gone  back  into 
Judaism,  but  taken  His  teachings,  we  should  have 
done  much  better  all  through  the  ages.  We  should 
then  have  put  aside  all  those  ideas  of  a  jealous  God, 
a  cruel  God,  a  God  who  persecuted  people  to  the 
third  or  fourth  generation  if  they  happened  to  do 
something  which  did  not  please  Him.  Christ 
spoke  very  differently;  He  taught  us  of  a  loving 
Father,  and  prayed  that  we  should  all  be  one  in 
Him  even  as  He  was  one  with  the  Father;  He  did 
not  talk  of  jealousy  and  cruelty  and  horror. 


The  Epiphany  V7 

The  Jews  were  intensely  self-centred  and  thought 
that  there  was  no  salvation  outside  their  own  body. 
The  evangelists  sometimes  put  words  into  Christ's 
mouth  which  seem  as  narrow  as  their  own  ideas,  for 
remember  they  also  were  mostly  Jews.  We  do  not 
know  so  much  about  Luke,  but  we  know  that 
Matthew,  Mark  and  John  were  Jews  at  any  rate. 
The  speech  about  taking  the  children's  bread  and 
casting  it  to  dogs  is  hardly  what  a  World-Saviour 
would  have  said.  But  we  can  see  the  true  attitude 
of  the  Christ  peeping  out  in  various  ways,  even  in 
what  is  attributed  to  Him  in  the  gospel.  Remember 
how  He  says:  "Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not 
of  this  fold" — not  Jews  at  all,  not  people  following 
Him  in  that  incarnation — "but  them  also  will  I 
bring,  and  there  shall  be  one  fold  and  one  shep- 
herd." Many  times  He  spoke  of  all  mankind,  and 
not  of  the  Jews  only. 

Christianity  as  a  whole  has  not  taken  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ  as  He  gave  it;  Christianity,  as  it 
exists  to-day,  is  much  more  the  work  of  St.  Paul 
than  the  work  of  Jesus.  That  may  sound  rather 
strange  in  the  ears  of  many,  but  not,  I  am  sure, 
to  those  who  have  really  studied  the  matter. 
All  the  complicated  theology,  all  the  difficult  ques- 
tions that  they  have  argued  about  so  much  in 
Church  Councils,  all  those  can  be  traced  to  St.  Paul. 
It  was  not  the  sayings  of  the  Christ  that  made  the 
mystery  and  the  trouble;  He  taught  a  perfectly 
straightforward  religion,  and  what  He  said,  if  we 
took  that  by  itself,  would  not  justify  a  great  deal 
of  what  we  find  in  theology  at  the  present  day. 

It  is  riot  for  us  to  say  that  St.  Paul  was  wrong 
in  the  line  that  he  took.  But  at  least  where  he 


88  The  Christian  Festivals 

appears  to  differ  from  what  the  Christ  said,  it  is 
open  to  us  to  follow  the  teaching  of  the  Christ 
rather  than  that  of  St.  Paul.  The  latter,  however, 
was  not  born  in  the  Holy  Land,  but  at  Tarsus,  and 
he  was  a  B/oman  citizen  by  family  right,  so  he  was 
not  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  Jewish  tradition 
as  St.  Peter.  t  We  find  them  sometimes  debating 
acrimoniously  (not  to  say  quarrelling)  about  various 
points  as  to  whether  the  Jewish  laws  should  be 
enforced  upon  all  the  Christian  converts.  The  more 
conservative  among  the  apostles  were  gradually 
driven  from  that  position,  and  they  had  to  let  in 
outsiders,  and  to  acknowledge  that  the  teaching  of 
Christ  was  intended  for  all;  but  they  came  to  that 
only  by  slow  degrees. 

In  Christianity  we  have  still  a  strong  touch  of 
that  old  Jewish  idea.  "We  do  not  make  it  a  ques- 
tion of  nationality  now.  We  do  not  venture  to  say 
that  only  English  people  can  be  saved,  or  only 
French,  or  only  Italians;  but  many  are  still  apt  to 
suppose  that  only  Christians  can  'be  saved,  and  they 
base  that  silly  idea  upon  one  or  two  texts  which  they 
misread.  It  is  said  more  than  once  that  only 
through  the  Name  of  Christ  can  men  be  saved;  that 
men  must  come  through  Him.  He  Himself  is  re- 
presented to  have  said:  "No  man  cometh  to  the 
Father  but  -by  me."  But  these  people  do  not 
understand  that  the  great  Christ-idea  is  a  complex 
thing,  and  that  it  does  not  always  mean  the  Teacher 
Christ  Jesus  (the  Christ  using  the  body  of  the  dis- 
ciple Jesus),  but  sometimes  the  still  greater  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God,  the  Second  Person  of  the  Ever- 
blessed  Trinity. 


The  Epiphany  69 

It  is  absolutely  true  that  a  man  may  become  one 
with  the  Almighty  Father  only  by  first  becoming 
one  with  the  Christ  within  the  human  heart,  for 
Christ  in  you  is  the  hope  of  glory,  and  there  is  no 
other  hope  of  glory  for  anyone  but  to  arouse,  to 
awaken,  the  Christ-principle  Within  himself,  to  be- 
come one  with  that,  and  through  that  to  rise  to  the 
great  Father  of  all.  Certainly  through  Christ  alone 
can  man  escape  from  the  round  of  birth  and  death, 
and  reach  the  level  where  he  is  one  with  God  Him- 
self. That  is  most  true,  but  it  does  not  mean,  as 
is  often  supposed,  that  his  worship  must  be  ad- 
dressed to  God  only  through  the  name  of  the  exoteric 
Jesus  Christ. 

Men  do  not  always  understand  that  in  those  old 
days  the  name  was  the  power;  to  call  rightly  upon 
the  name  of  any  Deity  was  to  invoke  the  power  of 
that  Deity,  and  so  it  was  through  the  power  of  the 
Christ  within  that  a  man  could  reach  the  highest, 
and  through  that  alone.  It  did  not  mean  that  he 
must  walk  along  this  particular  earthly  path,  and 
label  himself  a  Christian.  We  use  the  word 
"  Christ ";  a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian  would  pro- 
nounce that  name  differently.  Do  you  suppose  that 
he  would  be  any  the  further  from  salvation  because 
he  so  pronounced  that  name?  Do  you  suppose  that 
because  he  called  God  by  some  other  title,  God  would 
refuse  to  answer?  Would  you  refuse  to  answer  the 
appeal  of  your  little  child  because  he  could  not  pro- 
nounce your  name?  Hardly.  Then  why  should  we 
think  of  God  as  so  much  worse  than  ourselves?  All 
true  devotion  comes  to  God  by  whatever  name  people 
call  Him.  Some  call  Him  le  bon  Dleu,  some  say 
Shiva,  some  Brahma  or  Allah,  some  call  Him 


90  The  Christian  Festivals 

Ahuramazda.  What  does  it  matter?  The  prayers 
that  are  said  will  reach  God;  the  name  that  is  em- 
ployed is  but  a  form  of  words.  It  is  a  great  pity 
that  we  have  inherited  this  idea  that  we  as  Chris- 
tians (not  a  nation,  this  time,  but  a  religion)  are 
those  chosen  to  be  saVed — that  all  the  rest  are  out- 
siders left  at  the  best  to  the  uncovenanted  mercies 
of  God.  That  is  a  form  of  expression  which  means 
that  the  person  using  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
they  will  find  any  mercy  at  all. 

There  is  no  need  to  take  that  uncharitable  atti- 
tude. Even  St.  Paul,  who  was  supposed  to  be  so 
rigid,-  was  not  so  bigoted  as  many  modern  Christians 
are.  This  is  shown  by  the  special  formula  (I  am 
not  now  speaking  of  Church  history,  but  rather  of 
the  result  of  clairvoyant  investigation)  ^th  which 
he  prefaced  his  epistles.  It  remains  to  us  now  in 
only  one  of  them,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
all  commentators  and  biblical  students  are  quite  sure 
that  that  is  the  one  epistle  which  St.  Paul  did  not 
write!  He  began  it  with  a  rather  remarkable 
phrase.  "God,  Who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
manners  spake  in  times  past  unto  our  fathers  by 
the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto 
us  by  His  Son."  There  are  two  or  three  points  to 
be  noted  there.  We  must  cast  aside  the  illusion,  if 
it  still  persists  with  any  of  us,  that  Christ  spoke 
English;  He  did  not.  He  spoke  what  is  called  the 
Koine,  the  dialect  of  Greek  spoken  by  the  common 
people;  not  Aramaic,  though  He  must  also  have 
known  that,  but  this  dialect,  somewhat  broken-down, 
as  compared  with  the  classical  Greek.  Only  recently 
they  have  found  a  large  ni^nber  of  new  manuscripts 
in  that  dialect.  Until  then  the  New  Testament  was 


The  Epiphany  91 

thought  to  be  the  only  book  written  in  it,  but  now 
we  know  that  it  was  the  common  language  of  a 
vast  number  of  people.  Of  course  He  used  the 
idioms  of  the  time,  and  we  must  ascertain  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  words,  and  not  blindly  follow  those 
who,  before  it  was  known  that  this  was  the  common 
language,  twisted  His  words  to  fit  preconceived 
dogmas. 

"God  hath  spoken  by  the  prophets"  has  been 
taken  to  refer  only  to  the  Jewish  prophets,  those 
lugubrious  gentlemen  who  were  always  inveighing 
against  the  Jews.  Possibly  those  poor  Jews  deserved 
all  the  dreadful  things  that  were»said  of  them,  but 
at  any  rate  it  does  not  make  pleasant  or  helpful 
reading  in  the  present  day.  There  are  magnificent 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  there  are  also 
passages  which  later  editors  might  have  omitted 
without  any  serious  loss.  The  word  propketai  in 
Greek  does  not  mean  only  what  we  now  mean  by 
prophets.  Anyone  who  speaks  forth  or  preaches  is 
called  a  prophet.  When  the  soldiers  said  in  mockery 
to  the  Christ,  "Prophesy,"  they  did  not  ask  Him 
to  foretell  future  events;  they  meant  "Give  us  a 
speech."  The  verb  from  which  it  is  derived  means 
to  speak  out  aloud  as  well  as  to  foretell  the  future; 
so  prophetai  is  equivalent  to  preachers  and  nothing 
more.  St.  Paul  undoubtedly  meant:  "God  in  times 
past  has  spoken  to  our  ancestors  in  many  ways  and 
at  many  different  times  by  other  preachers,  and  now 
in  these  days  He  has  spoken  unto  us  by  His  Son" 
—by  One  Who  is  a  special  manifestation  of  the 
divine  power.  Those  preachers  by  whom  God  had 
spoken  in  the  past  were  the  Lord  Buddha,  Vyasa, 
Zoroaster,  Thoth,  Orpheus — all  the  great  men  who 


92  The  Christian  Festivals 

had  founded  religions.  They,  too,  were  all  mani- 
festations of  the  same  mighty  Teacher ;  they  too  were 
messengers  of  God,  at  those  other  times  and  to  those 
to  whom  they  were  sent. 

Mankind  differs,  happily;  it  would  be  a  poor 
world  if  we  were  all  alike.  In  successive  stages  of 
evolution,  and  in  various  countries,  men  have  dif- 
fered very  widely.  To  each  of  those  types  and 
classes  of  men  appropriate  religions  have  been 
preached,  each  by  its  own  preacher;  but  all  reli- 
gions point  to  the  same  rule.  They  all  teach  to 
men  exactly  the  same  life.  They  differ  in  the 
names  that  they  apply  to  things;  but  we  must  learn 
that  names  are  external  labels  and  do  not  matter. 
All  alike  tell  us  that  the  good  man  is  the  unselfish, 
the  charitable,  the  kindly,  the  gentle;  all  alike  tell 
us  that  offences  against  others,  murder,  stealing,  out- 
rages of  any  sort  upon  another  are  the  most  terrible 
crimes.  Their  teaching  is  identical,  but  they  put 
it  in  a  different  form  according  to  what  is  most 
needed  at  the  time.  And  so  even  St.  Paul  tells 
us  that  God  has  spoken  many  times  to  our  fathers, 
who  assuredly  were  Gentiles  and  not  Jews,  and  now 
in  these  last  days  He  has  spoken  to  us  through 
this  special  manifestation  which  we  call  His  Son. 

Christianity  is  one  of  the  great  paths  up  the  moun- 
tain of  light  at  the  summit  of  which  sits  God  Him- 
self. It  is  one  of  the  paths,  but  only  one,  and  if  we 
have  a  number  of  people  all  round  the  base  of  the 
mountain,  the  shortest  path  to  the  top  for  each 
man  is  the  path  which  opens  before  him.  It  would 
be  foolish  to  have  the  idea  that  we  must  go  and 
drag  a  man  all  round  the  base  of  the  mountain  in 
order  to  make  him  walk  up  our  particular  path. 


The  Epiphany  93 

Our  efforts  to  convert  people  from  other  religions 
and  modes  of  worship  are  unnecessary  and  presump- 
tuous. The  effort  to  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
people  who  are  ignorant  of  His  ways  is  a  grand 
and  noble  action;  that  we  should  by  deed  as  well 
as  by  word  preach  our  belief  that  there  is  a  God, 
and  that  to  live  as  He  would  have  men  live  is  the 
only  sure  way  to  comfort  and  peace — that  is  a 
noble  work;  but  to  try  to  convert  a  man  who  is 
already  good  along  his  own  line  in  order  to  make 
him  good  along  ours  is  not  a  sensible  thing  to  do. 

If  members  of  other  religions  acted  as  many  of  our 
people  do,  and  tried  to  make  us  worship  as  they 
do,  we  should  say:  "What  is  the  use  of  this?  We 
have  our  own  ways  of  worship ;  why  should  we  leave 
them  to  take  up  this  other?"  Can  we  not  see  that 
they  might  say  exactly  the  same  to  us?  It  is  all 
the  result  of  this  mad  idea  .that  our  way  is  the 
only  way,  that  our  presentation  is  the  best  pos- 
sible presentation.  It  may  be  the  best  for  us;  but 
why  cannot  we  realize  that  the  presentation  which 
the  same  God  has  put  before  them  may  be  the  best 
for  them?  It  was  God  and  none  other  that  decreed 
that  these  men  should  be  born  as  Buddhists  and 
Hindus,  while  He  gaVe  to  us  Christian  bodies.  How 
comes  it  that  we  are  here  and  they  there?  It  is  by 
the  great  law  which  is  the  expression  of  God's  will. 
So  let  each  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind ; 
but  let  each  man  go  his  own  way,  and  not  try  to 
interfere  with  those  of  others.  All  paths  lead  to 
the  top,  so  long  as  the  same  good  life  is  led. 

It  does  not  matter  in  what  words  a  man  expresses 
his  belief,  assuredly  he  shall  attain.  That  is  the 
great  lesson,  I  think,  of  this  manifestation  of  Christ 


94  The  Christian  Festivals 

to  the  Gentiles;  the  Gentiles  merely  meaning 
foreigners,  those  who  are  not  Jews.  Let  us  then 
realize  strongly  that  there  are  many  ways;  that 
it  is  not  for  us  to  say  that  one  way  is  better  than 
the  other.  No  doubt  it  seems  so  to  us,  but  it  is  not 
necessarily  so  for  the  other  man;  and  that  is  true 
not  only  of  the  great  religions,  but  even  of  sects 
as  well. 

There  are  three  hundred  Christian  sects  and  more. 
They  are  all  from  God.  We  see  the  advantages  of 
our  particular  method,  because  we  have  constantly 
experienced  its  help.  We  of  the  Liberal  Catholic 
Church,  for  instance,  partake  of  the  Holy  Sacra- 
ment and  feel  the  splendid  outpouring  of  love  and 
strength  that  we  receive  in  this  way,  and  we  think: 
"No  one  who  does  not  take  this  or  feel  this  can 
get  on  nearly  so  well  in  religion."  That  is  true  for 
ourselves;  but  we  must  try  to  realize  that  many  of 
these  other  people  may  stand  on  a  different  line, 
and  what  appeals  so  strongly  to  us  may  not  appeal 
to  a  Methodist,  for  example.  Let  each  man  go  his 
own  way;  let  us  by  all  means  recommend  ours  to 
him,  since  we  find  it  so  beautiful,  but  in  thus  recom- 
mending it  we  must  always  be  utterly  charitable 
inside  as  well  as  outside.  We  must  not  only  say 
in  words:  "I  think  your  plan  is  probably  as  good 
as  mine,  but  it  differs";  we  must  really  feel  inside 
ourselves  that  every  man  has  his  own  way,  and  it 
is  not  for  us  to  take  him  out  of  his  way  and  put 
him  into  another.  We  must  not  have  the  slightest 
feeling  that  he  is  not  quite  up  to  our  level, 
which  I  think  we  are  a  little  apt  to  feel  if  we  are 
not  careful.  Each  man  can  be  helped  on  his  own 
line ;  Jew  or  Gentile,  what  matters  it  ?  High  Church, 


The  Epiphany  95 

Low  Church,  we  are  all  trying  to  serve  God  each 
in  his  own  way,  and  that  is  what  we  have  to  learn. 
We  have  all  sorts  of  beautiful  feelings  within  us; 
let  us  give  the  other  man  credit  for  having  the 
same  in  his  own  way.  So  shall  we  all,  through  our 
recognition  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  come  to  feel 
as  true  brothers  to  all  our  fellowmen,  and  that  is 
the  great  end  and  aim  of  it  all,  that  we  may  be  one 
in  Christ,  whatever  we  may  call  Him,  as  He  is  one 
with  the  Father. 

We  know  that  the  Star  in  the  East,  whose  shin- 
ing we  celebrate  at  the  Epiphany,  has  been  taken 
as  its  standard  and  symbol  by  a  world-wide  Society 
called  the  Order  of  the  Star  in  the  East,  to  which 
I  have  already  referred — an  Order  which  especially 
asks  those  who  join  it  to  devote  themselves  to  the 
endeavour  to  fit  themselves  for  the  second  Coming 
of  the  Christ,  that  they  may  know  Him  when  He 
comes  and  be  ready  to  offer  Him  service.  This 
Order  was  not  founded  actually  upon  this  festival, 
but  five  days  later,  on  January  llth;  but  on  this 
anniversary  we  may  well  bear  it  in  mind.  The 
business  of  its  members  is  also  to  try,  so  far  as 
may  be,  to  prepare  others  too,  to  induce  some  people 
at  least  in  the  midst  of  all  the  turmoil  and  con- 
fusion of  the  world  to  pay  attention  to  this  second 
Coming,  which  we  hold  will  not  be  long  delayed. 
Therefore  it  is  indeed  well  that  we  should  think  of 
it.  Those  of  us  who  are  keenly  interested  may  well 
join  this  Order  which  exists  to  prepare  His  way. 
It  has  branches  in  every  country  in  the  world;  it 
publishes  many  pamphlets  and  books,  a  list  of  which 
can  be  obtained  from  its  Headquarters,  314  Regent 
Street,  London,  W.  But  whether  we  join  it  or  not, 


96  The  Christian  Festivals 

at  any  rate  let  us  think   clearly  and  definitely  of 
what  we  shall  do  when  He  shall  come. 

Let  us  take  to  heart  the  lesson  of  the  Star.  All 
through  Advent  we  were  preparing  ourselves 
worthily  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  the  Christ- Child, 
and  this  culminated  at  Christmas,  when  we  thought 
of  all  that  that  birth  has  meant  to  us,  and  expressed 
our  devoutest  thankfulness  for  it  in  all  its  various 
significations.  Now  this  great  festival,  which  comes 
just  twelve  days  later,  is  intended  to  indicate  to  us 
the  translation  of  all  that  joy  into  action.  We 
have  prepared  for  the  Coming:  we  have  celebrated 
it;  now  what  have  we  to  do  with  regard  to  it? 
How  can  we  share  this  joy  with  our  fellowmen? 
The  three  kings  were  the  first  Christian  preachers; 
the  first  to  go  forth  and  proclaim  to  the  world  the 
birth  of  the  new-born  King — King  not  of  provinces 
and  of  armies,  but  of  the  hearts  and  souls  of  men. 
The  legend  tells  us  that  they  gave  up  all  in  order 
to  preach  His  Coming.  We,  in  these  days,  are  not 
called  upon  to  make  so  great  a  sacrifice,  yet  surely 
all  the  more  should  we  devote  whatever  time  and 
energy  we  can  spare  to  trying  to  spread  the  good 
news.  Let  no  mere  worldly  business,  no  worldly 
work  or  ambition  come  between  us  and  the  Lord 
Who  shall  come  suddenly  to  His  Temple.  Let  us 
be  ready  to  recognize  Him  and  follow  Him,  even  as 
did  the  Wise  Men  of  old,  and  let  us  offer  to  Him 
most  heartily  and  thoroughly  the  gold  of  our  love, 
the  frankincense  of  our  worship,  and  the  myrrh  of 
our  self-sacrifice.  So  shall  we  repeat  those  gifts  of 
old  at  a  higher  and  a  spiritual  level;  so  will  the 
Star  shine  not  in  vain  for  those  of  us  who  have 
qualified  themselves  to  recognize  His  Coming. 


The  Epiphany  97 

It  may  be  very  soon,  so  it  would  be  unwise  to 
delay  our  preparation.  There  were  many  before 
who  knew  nothing  of  His  Coming;  all  the  great 
kings  of  the  earth,  all  the  rich  men,  all  the  most 
intellectual  people  of  Greece,  of  Rome  and  of 
Egypt  paid  no  attention  to  Him  at  all.  His  im- 
mediate followers,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  story, 
were  a  few  poor  fishermen,  and  others  like  them, 
but  none  of  any  distinction,  none  of  great  learning, 
none  of  high  position.  Shall  that  be  the  same  this 
time?  "We  do  not  know,  but  at  least  let  us  put  our- 
selves in  the  attitude  in  which  we  shall  recognize 
Him.  Before,  there  was  one  forerunner  to  proclaim 
His  Coming;  this  time  there  should  be  many  thou- 
sands of  us  who  try  to  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord 
and  make  His  paths  straight.  There  surely  can  be 
no  nobler  message  than  that;  there  can  be  nothing 
more  beautiful  for  us  to  put  before  the  world. 

It  has  sometimes  been  objected:  "Suppose  after 
all  we  should  be  misleading  people;  suppose  He 
should  decide  not  to  come  as  yet."  Well,  even  then, 
have  you  done  any  harm  by  trying  to  prepare 
people  for  His  Coming?  If  it  should  be  that,  for 
some  reason  known  only  in  the  counsels  of  the  Most 
High,  He  should  postpone  His  Coming,  to  have 
prepared  ourselves  to  receive  Him  is  still  a  great 
and  noble  work.  We  shall  be  better  and  not  worse 
for  having  tried  to  put  ourselves  in  the  attitude  of 
receptivity  to  that  mighty  influence,  and  no  harm 
can  possibly  be  done  by  such  preparation;  whereas 
if  He  should  come  and  find  us  unready,  should  we 
ever  cease  to  regret  it  through  all  the  centuries  yet 
to  come? 


98  The  Christian  Festivals 

He  Himself  said  that  before  He  came  again  there 
would  be  much  confusion  and  much  trouble  in  the 
world — that  many  should  run  to  and  fro,  and  that 
there  should  be  false  Christs  rising  up  everywhere. 
So  it  may  well  be  that  there  will  be  many  who  do 
not  recognize  and  follow  Him  when  He  shall  come. 
Indeed,  it  is  certain  that  there  will  be  some  who  in 
His  own  name  will  refuse  to  listen  to  Him.  They 
will  say:  "Christ  came  once  two  thousand  years 
ago;  we  follow  the  teaching  which  He  gave  us  then. 
We  cannot  be  led  aside  from  that  by  any  other 
teaching."  And  so  in  His  own  name,  and  out  of 
a  certain  kind  of  loyalty  to  Him,  they  will  fail  to 
recognize  Him  when  He  shall  come  again. 

Let  that  not  be  so  with  us.  As  the  Star  arose 
in  the  sky,  and  led  those  three  kings  to  Bethlehem, 
so  is  there  a  Star  which  shines  before  all  who  will 
see  it  even  now,  though  it  be  no  longer  a  physical 
phenomenon.  If  that  Star  were  truly  visible  in 
the  sky  two  thousand  years  ago,  millions  must  have 
seen  it,  but  only  three  understood  and  followed  it. 
There  is  no  information  given  in  the  story  as  to 
whether  they  alone  were  favoured  by  that  sight. 
We  cannot  say;  but  at  least  it  is  sure  that,  for  all 
those  whose  inner  eyes  are  opened,  there  are  clear 
indications  now  of  the  near  Coming  of  the  same 
great  World-Teacher  once  more.  We  might  truly 
say,  as  He  is  reported  to  have  said  when  He  ad- 
dressed the  Jews:  "There  be  many  standing  here 
who  shall  not  taste  death  until  they  see  the  Lord 
Christ."  Whether  He  really  said  that  or  not  we 
cannot  say;  it  seems  improbable,  for  surely  He  must 
have  known.  But  now,  at  least,  the  signs  are  clear; 
now  it  seems  that  the  time  is  drawing  near.  Let 


The  Epiphany  99 

us  be  ready  for  it;  let  us  be  prepared  to  receive  that 
greater  Epiphany  of  the  Christ.  Let  us  be  among 
those  Wise  Men  who  have  watched  for  His  Coming, 
who  recognize  Him  when  He  does  come  and  are 
prepared  to  lay  at  His  feet  the  gifts  of  their  love 
and  devotion  and  service.  We  have  indeed  a  gospel 
to  preach,  just  as  truly  as  the  Wise  Men  of  old. 
Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  do  not  lose  the  won- 
derful opportunity  that  has  been  offered  to  us 
— that  we  do  not  fall  short  in  the  performance  of 
an  obvious  duty. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  prescribe  what  each  shall  do; 
each  man  will  do  what  he  can  in  his  own  way.  But 
at  least  let  each  one  see  to  it  that  he  is  definitely 
doing  something.  There  are  many  ways  in  which 
work  may  be  done  for  the  Star,  but  this  much  is 
clear,  that  whatever  else  we  may  be  able  to  do  for 
it  in  the  way  of  active  work,  we  at  least  owe  it  this 
duty — that  we  should  live  for  it.  We  who  preach 
the  Star  to  others  must  assuredly  show  forth  its 
influence  in  our  daily  life,  its  wisdom,  its  strength, 
its  joy,  its  peace,  its  freedom  and  its  lovingkind- 
ness.*  We  who  love  the  Star  should  ourselves  >be  as 
stars  to  help  to  illumine  the  world  in  which  we 
move;  we  must  try,  each  according  to  his  capacity, 
to  shine  and  to  show  forth  in  purity,  in  gentleness, 
and  in  steadfastness  the  light  that  is  within  us.  So 
this  day  is  linked  with  those  that  have  preceded  it, 
for  we  cannot  better  show  forth  the  glory  of  the 
Star  than  by  perpetuating,  all  through  the  year  that 
lies  before  us,  the  very  attitude  of  kindliness  and 
brotherliness  upon  which  we  have  already  resolved. 
On  the  day  of  the  Star  let  its  glory  shine  about  us, 

*  Sea  Starlight,  by  C.  W.  Leadbeater 


100  The  Christian  Festivals 

and  let  us  ever  remember  that  it  is  with  it,  as  with 
all  other  good  things — that  only  in  the  proportion 
in  which  we  can  share  it  with  our  fellows  shall  we 
receive  its  fullest  blessing. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BAPTISM  OF  OUR  LORD 

We  have  chosen  January  15th  for  the  celebration 
of  the  Baptism  of  our  Lord.  It  is  not  that  we 
know  it  in  any  way  to  be  the  anniversary  of  that 
occasion,  for  the  Church  has  lost  the  exact  date,  so 
far  as  we  are  aware.  The  gospel  account  of  that 
Baptism  tells  us  that  Jesus  Himself  came  to  His 
forerunner,  John  the  Baptist,  and  asked  for  this 
rite  to  be  administered  to  Him.  John  not  un- 
naturally objected  in  his  humility,  and  said:  "I 
have  need  to  be  baptized  of  Thee,  and  comest  Thou 
to  me?"  That  is  to  say:  "Thou  art  much  greater 
and  more  highly  developed  than  I,  why  dost  Thou 
want  to  be  baptized  by  me?"  And  Jesus  said: 
"Suffer  it  to  be  so  now;  for  thus  it  becometh  us  to 
fulfil  all  righteousness."  And  so  He  accepted  the 
sacrament.  What  He  meant  evidently  was:  "This 
is  a  mark  of  a  certain  stage.  In  this  birth  of  mine 
I  also  must  fulfil  the  law — the  normal  course  of  all 
those  who  try  to  reach  the  higher  levels — and  there- 
fore I,  though  I  be  in  truth  beyond  all  this,  in  the 
outer  world  must  fulfil  all  righteousness.  I  must 
pass  through  all  these  stages  just  as  anyone  else." 
Just  so,  if  the  greatest  of  saints  came  back  to  earth 
and  was  reborn,  would  he  pass  through  all  the  sac- 
raments of  the  Church,  through  baptism  and.  con- 
firmation, though  he  might  be  far  beyond  what  they 
ordinarily  mean  or  symbolize  to  us. 

So  Jesus  passed  through  this,  and  therefore  as  a 
perfect  example  showed  us  that  we  also  should  pass 

101 


'M?  :  The  Christian  Festivals 

through  all  the  prescribed  rites,  no  matter  whether 
we  feel  ourselves  to  be  beyond  what  they  can  give. 
It  is  easy  for  a  man  to  deceive  himself;  there  have 
been  those  who  have  said:  "I  do  not  need  any 
outer  sacrament;  I  can  receive  no  benefit  from 
such  things."  It  may  be  so,  for  we  all  know  that 
any  man  may  draw  near  to  the  Christ  at  any  level 
without  an  intermediary.  It  is  possible;  it  has 
been  done,  though  rarely ;  and  perhaps  it  is  not 
well  rashly  to  decide  that  we  can  dispense  with  all 
help.  We  may  be  great  saints  in  disguise,  but  it 
is  better  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

Make  no  mistake  as  to  this ;  any  man,  at  any  stage, 
who  turns  his  thought  towards  the  Christ,  or  sends 
an  aspiration  to  Him,  will  unquestionably  call  forth 
a  response,  and  will  be  the  better  for  his  effort.  But 
the  same  expenditure  of  force  will  bring  a  far 
greater  return  if  it  be  expended  along  the  channel 
already  prepared  by  Christ  for  His  people  and  desig- 
nated by  His  Church  for  our  use.  It  is  much  easier 
to  walk  along  a  carefully  levelled  road  than  to  force 
one's  way  through  the  entanglements  of  a  pathless 
jungle;  and  when  the  road  is  already  there,  lovingly 
provided  for  that  especial  purpose,  why  should  one 
be  so  ungracious  as  to  refuse  to  walk  in  it? 

If  we  follow  the  teaching  and  the  rites  of  the 
Church,  be  very  sure  that  they  will  do  great  good 
to  us,  however  advanced  we  may  feel  ourselves  to 
be  inwardly.  For  the  greater  a  man  is  the  more 
he  can  receive  from  the  sacraments  and  the  rites  of 
Holy  Church.  So  we  may  well  follow  the  example 
of  the  Christ:  " Suffer  it  to  be  so  now,  for  thus  it 
becometh  us  to  fulfil  all  righteousness."  It  is  an 
apt  and  beautiful  symbol. 


The  Baptism  of  our  Lord  103 

It  is  well  that  we  should  think  sometimes  of  the 
path  of  development  that  lies  before  us.  We  should 
note  the  different  steps  and  what  is  required  of  those 
who  would  take  them,  and  frequently  examine  our- 
selves and  see  in  what  way,  and  to  what  extent,  we 
fall  short  now  of  that  which  is  required,  because 
although  we  may  still  be  at  some  distance  from 
such  spiritual  possibilities  as  these,  at  least  we 
ought  to  be  trying  to  qualify  ourselves  for  this 
which  lies  before  each  one  of  us.  A  man  may  say 
humbly:  "I  am  not  a  great  saint;  I  am  very  far 
from  that.  I  have  all  sorts  of  faults  and  failings." 
No  doubt;  for  we  all  have.  But  God  does  not  tie  us 
down  to  a  limited  time.  We  must  not  think  of  this 
one  little  life  as  all  that  is  given  to  us.  If  so,  it 
would  indeed  be  a  mockery  to  say  to  us:  "Be  ye 
perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect."  How 
can  we  be?  We  know  how  far  we  fall  short  of 
it ;  how  can  we  carry  out  that  command  ?  Yet  would 
that  command  have  been  given  if  it  had  been  impos- 
sible for  us?  It  is  not  impossible,  precisely  be- 
cause we  have  before  us  plenty  of  time  for  our 
efforts.  Never  a  moment  to  waste,  but  such  time 
as  we  need  we  shall  have.  If  we  do  not  succeed  in 
this  life,  we  shall  come  back  again  and  again  until 
we  do  succeed,  exactly  as  a  child  goes  to  school  day 
after  day,  and  in  between  the  days  of  work  he  goes 
home  and  takes  off  the  clothing  he  has  worn  for 
his  school-life,  and  goes  to  bed  and  rests.  Just  so 
we  take  off  the  robe  of  flesh — this  physical  bodjr— 
and  live  in  the  spiritual  body.  And  then  presently 
we  come  out  of  that  stage  of  rest,  and  come  back 
yet  again  and  assume  the  garment  of  earthly  life 
—the  physical  body. 


104  The  Christian  Festivals 

That  was  well  known  in  the  time  of  Christ.  We 
read  that  He  said  to  His  disciples:  "Whom  do  men 
say  that  I  am?"  And  they  answered  Him:  "Some 
say  that  Thou  art  the  prophet  Elias  (Elijah)  :  some 
say  Thou  art  Jeremiah  or  one  of  the  prophets." 
And  then  He  explained  to  them  that  John  the 
Baptist  was  Elijah,  so  He  could  not  be  he.  He  said 
to  them:  "If  ye  will  receive  it,  Elias  has  already 
come."  And  then  He  asked  whom  they  took  Him 
to  be,  and  Peter  gave  the  reply:  "Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God."  So  it  is  clear 
that  He  knew,  and  those  to  whom  He  spoke  knew, 
that  it  was  possible  for  people  to  come  back  again 
in  other  bodies.  Also  He  was  asked,  when  they 
brought  to  Him  a  man  who  was  born  blind:  "Who 
did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born 
blind  T"  How  could  a  man  have  sinned  and  been 
born  blind  as  a  punishment  for  it,  unless  the  sin 
had  been  committed  in  some  former  life?  They 
clearly  grasped  the  doctrine  of  reincarnation,  but 
because  that  doctrine  has  since  been  dropped  aside, 
a  great  deal  in  the  scripture  and  in  the  Creed 
appears  unintelligible  to  people.  We  must  try  to 
recover  this  ancient  doctrine  and  to  apprehend  all 
that  follows  from  it.  The  faith  may  have  been 
once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints,  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  it  was  fully  understood  by  them.  Many 
advancements  have  been  made  in  knowledge  of  all 
kinds  since  then;  perchance  in  religion  also  we  may 
come  to  comprehend  much  better  what  has  been  said 
than  some  of  them  did. 

So  let  us  observe  these  different  festivals.  Let 
us  try  not  merely  to  follow  these  things  as  anniver- 
saries, but  to  remember  the  symbolism  and  under- 


The  Baptism  of  our  Lord  105 

stand  it;  and  when  we  have  learnt  the  lesson  which 
it  has  to  teach,  let  us  try  to  live  according  to  that 
lesson.  If  we  are  some  day  to  attain  these  great 
stages  we  must  live  now  so  as  to  fit  ourselves  day 
by  day  for  this  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
Christlike  state  of  mind  which  alone  will  enable  us 
to  live  the  life  which  the  Christ  would  have  us  live. 
We  must  recognize  from  the  beginning  that  the 
requirements  of  the  spiritual  life  are  high,  and  that 
no  man  can  hope  to  follow  his  Leader  up  this 
mighty  ladder  of  evolution  unless  he  is  indeed  will- 
ing to  devote  himself,  spirit,  soul  and  body  with  all 
his  strength  to  Him.  It  is  not  necessary  that  he 
should  retire  altogether  from  the  world.  That  has 
been  a  common  error.  The  demands  of  the 
higher  spiritual  development  are  so  great  that  a 
man  may  well  be  pardoned  if  he  feels  that  he 
should  devote  every  moment  of  his  lifetime  to 
them,  and  in  the  past  that  has  been  done  to  a 
great  extent.  In  older  civilizations  and  in  earlier 
religions  men  almost  always  commenced  the  pur- 
suit of  the  really  higher  life  by  becoming  her- 
mits or  monks.  A  man  gave  up  the  world  alto- 
gether; he  consigned  himself  to  an  existence  of 
absolute  poverty,  absolute  chastity  and  self-control, 
and  lived  altogether  in  the  higher  meditation. 
Sometimes  there  was  a  slight  modification  of  that. 
In  the  Buddhist  religion  a  man  who  becomes  a  monk 
does  not  necessarily  devote  the  whole  of  his  life  to 
contemplation,  but  he  does  emphatically  devote  it 
wholly  to  doing  good.  All  through  the  earlier  his- 
tory of  Christianity  we  find  that  many  of  its  saints 
did  exactly  the  same  thing.  Either  they  became 
hermits  or  they  entered  some  monastery,  so  that 


106  The  Christian  Festivals 

their    surroundings    might    make    it    comparatively 
easy  for  them  to  live  wholly  for  the  spirit. 

For  us  in  these  days  a  harder  task  is  set.  The 
great  keynote  of  our  spiritual  lives  is  to  be  of  ser- 
vice. The  highest  service  of  God  is  to  serve  Him 
in  the  person  of  our  fellowmen;  and  in  order  that 
we  may  devote  ourselves  to  that  service  it  is  neces- 
sary that  we  should  remain  in  the  world,  even 
though  we  may  not  be  of  the  world  in  the  sense 
that  worldly  matters  bulk  most  largely  for  us.  We 
must  not  therefore  feel  ourselves  superior  to  the 
monk  or  the  hermit  of  old.  It  is  not  true  to  say 
that  one  who  passed  altogether  out  of  the  ordi- 
nary business  life  of  the  world  thought  only  of 
himself  and  his  own  development.  Such  men  help 
greatly  in  the  elevation  of  the  .spiritual  tone  of  the 
world  as  a  whole.  There  are  many  people  wholly 
given  up  to  business  and  to  pleasure;  in  order  to 
balance  that,  it  is  surely  well  that  among  the  human 
race  there  should  be  some  who  give  up  all  their 
strength  to  the  higher  life  of  meditation,  and  we 
must  not  for  a  moment  think  that  these  men  of  old 
were  necessarily  selfish  in  doing  that.  They  were 
flooding  the  world  with  a  higher  type  of  spiritual 
thought  and  devotional  feeling  than  would  have 
been  possible  in  those  days  for  ordinary  men  en- 
gaged in  business.  We  should  not  at  all  think  of 
those  people  as  doing  nothing;  but,  as  I  have  said, 
a  harder  task  is  put  before  us — that  we  should  re- 
main in  the  world  and  still  develop  that  higher 
spiritual  nature  as  much  as  we  might  have  done  if 
we  had  retired  altogether  from  ordinary  life. 

Some  may  object:  "But  that  is  impracticable; 
how  can  we  be  so  much  sponger  spiritually  than 


The  Baptism  of  our  Lord  107 

were  those  great  men  of  old?"  The  reason  is  that 
we,  some  of  us,  are  those  great  men  of  old,  come 
back  again  in  other  bodies  to  czfrry  our  development 
in  the  following  of  our  Lord  Christ  a  little  further 
than  we  carried  it  before.  If  some  of  us  succeeded, 
in  that  older  civilization,  in  living  the  spiritual  life 
apart  from  the  world,  the  strength  that  we  gained 
then  will  help  us  now  to  try  to  live  the  spiritual 
life  in  the  world.  We  can  still  flood  that  world 
with  higher  thought  and  with  the  noblest  devo- 
tional feeling,  but  we  can  have  also  the  inestimable 
advantage  of  being  among  our  fellowmen  and  there- 
fore bringing  a  more  direct  influence  to  bear  upon 
them.  Again  some  may  think:  "That  is  all  very 
well  for  a  preacher  or  a  lecturer;  no  doubt  he  sheds 
out  a  certain  amount  of  influence,  but  what  can 
we  do?  We  live  quite  ordinary  lives;  we  have  to 
earn  our  living,  and  we  have  to  keep  our  wives 
and  families;  how  can  we  shed  an  influence 
abroad?" 

Every  human  being  is  doing  so,  all  the  time; 
whether  he  knows  it  or  whether  he  never  thinks  of 
it,  he  is  nevertheless  affecting  the  lives  of  all  those 
about  him,  and  not  only  by  what  he  says  or  does; 
every  thought  that  he  thinks  affects  other  minds 
around  him,  every  word  that  he  utters  may  be  so 
arranged  as  to  carry  a  good  feeling  with  it.  A  man 
cannot  be  always  •  preaching ;  but  all  his  thoughts, 
his  words  and  his  deeds  should  be  such  as  to  shed 
a  holy  and  Christlike  influence  on  those  about  him. 
That  is  the  essence  of  the  spiritual  life;  that  is 
what  everyone  of  us,  at  his  level  and  in  his  degree, 
should  be  doing. 


108  The  Christian  Festivals 

To  attain  to  the  level  of  the  first  great  Initiation 
a  man  must  dominate  his  body  by  means  of  his 
soul;  he  must  so  arrange  that  all  his  feelings  are  in 
harmony  with  the  highest  feeling.  When  the  second 
of  the  great  steps  comes  the  same  process  is  car- 
ried a  stage  farther,  and  in  the  second  Initiation, 
of  which  this  Baptism  of  our  Lord  is  the  symbol, 
the  man's  mind,  and  not  only  his  feeling,  is  brought 
into  tune  with  the  Christ-mind.  The  latter  is  still 
infinitely  above  it,  of  course,  for  we  are  only  men, 
and  very  frail  and  human,  while  He  rises  above 
humanity  as  a  Superman ;  but  nevertheless  our 
thoughts  should  lie  along  the  line  of  His  thoughts. 
Just  as  the  man  who  is  beginning  to  tread  the  Path 
says:  "In  these  circumstances  what  would  the  Christ 
have  done?  let  me  do  the  same,"  so  the  man  who 
has  passed  that  second  stage  should  watch  his 
thought  every  moment  and  say  to  himself:  "What 
would  the  Christ  have  thought  in  such  a  case  as 
this?  How  would  this  thing  have  envisaged  itself 
to  Him?" 

The  same  great  thought  exists  in  our  religion  as 
in  all  the  older  faiths.  All  religions  are  as  coloured 
lenses  through  which  shines  the  same  bright  light; 
they  are  all  statements  of  the  same  great  truth; 
therefore  whatever  is  found  philosophically  stated 
in  those  older  faiths  is  to  be  found  also  represented 
in  this,  the  latest  of  the  great  religions.  Because  wa 
are  Christians  we  need  not  necessarily  be  ignorant, 
although  it  is  quite  true  that  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Church  most  of  the  Christians  were  drawn  from 
unlearned  people,  and  a  vast  heritage  of  misunder- 
standing has  come  down  to  us  from  those  times  of 
ignorance.  It  is  for  us  now  to  add  to  our  faith 


The  Baptism  of  our  Lord  109 

virtue,  and  to  virtue  knowledge,  as  St.  Peter  put 
it,  so  that  while  we  hold  the  same  old  faith,  we  may 
hold  it  far  more  intelligently  than  did  our  fore- 
fathers, because  we  know  now  what  it  symbolizes; 
so  instead  of  taking  statements  as  literally  historic 
which  on  the  face  of  them  are  incredible,  we  rea- 
lize their  meaning  in  this  mighty  myth  of  progress, 
and  therefore  we  learn  from  them  instead  of  forc- 
ing ourselves  to  accept  them  without  comprehension. 

Never  again  will  a  great  leader  of  the  Church  say : 
Credo  quia  impossibUe,  which  means:  "I  believe  it 
because  it  is  impossible. "  When  we  find  a  state- 
ment which  on  the  face  of  it  looks  incredible,  we 
say:  "What  is  the  meaning  of  this?  For  it  must 
have  a  meaning,  and  it  must  have  a  place,  or  we 
should  not  find  it  in  this  our  faith/'  It  would 
have  been  well  if  the  early  Church  Fathers  in  the 
Christian  religion  had  followed  the  example  of  the 
great  Council  of  the  religious  Fathers  of  the 
Buddhist  religion.  When  those  men  met  to  formu- 
late doctrine  after  the  death  of  the  Buddha,  find- 
ing many  curious  statements  and  distortions  of  His 
sayings  put  before  them,  their  decision  was:  "No- 
thing whatever  which  is  not  in  accordance  with 
reason  and  common  sense  can  be  the  teaching  of  the 
Buddha."  I  wish  the  Christian  Fathers  had 
adopted  that  same  line  of  thought;  it  would  have 
saved  us  much  trouble. 

Only  those  who  have  seen  one  of  the  great  Initia- 
tions can  say  how  good  is  the  symbolism  which  the 
Church  has  adopted  for  them.  The  first  does  dis- 
tinctly symbolize  a  birth;  the  Master  Who  is  acting 
as  Initiator  expands  His  aura,  His  higher  vehicles, 
and  absolutely  enfolds  within  Himself  the  pupil, 


110  The  Christian  Festivals 

and  the  pupil  comes  forth  from  that  contact  a  new 
man  in  many  ways,  so  it  may  truly  be  described  as 
a  birth.  In  the  second  Initiation  there  is  a  down- 
pouring  of  force  from  on  high  which  is  aptly  sym- 
bolized by  a  baptism — a  tremendous  rush  of  power 
down  from  the  Initiator  upon  the  Initiated.  It  is 
a  veritable  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  o'f  fire, 
as  the  Christ  described  it;  it  is  a  fiery  flood  which 
is  poured  down,  and  it  has  undoubtedly  the  appear- 
ance of  a  stream  of  living  light.  If  we  realize  the 
symbolical  meaning  of  all  these  things  we  shall 
understand  that  they  make  a  coherent  sequence,  and 
that  each  year  the  Church  in  this  way  sets  before 
us  the  path  we  have  to  tread,  in  the  hope  that  con- 
templating it  we  shall  learn  to  understand  it,  and 
that  we  shall  then  develop  within  ourselves  the  re- 
quirements which  are  needed  for  each  of  these  great 
steps. 

There  is  no  mystery  about  these  requirements; 
they  are  given  in  many  of  our  books.  I  myself  made 
a  list  of  them  at  the  end  of  my  little  book  Invisible 
Helpers.  I  use  there  the  Oriental  terms,  but  we 
find  the  same  stages  in  the  Christian  teaching  under 
the  names  of  Conversion,  Purification,  Illumination, 
and  Perfection.  Perfection  corresponds  to  what  is 
called  in  the  East  the  Arhat  Initiation.  St.  Paul 
is  reported  to  have  said:  "We  speak  wisdom  to 
them  that  are  perfect" — a  remark  which  does  not 
sound  particularly  intelligent  if  we  take  the  word 
in  its  ordinary  signification,  but  is  luminous  and 
clear  when  we  know  that  "perfect"  is  a  technical 
word  for  a  certain  degree  in  the  Christian  Mysteries. 
The  meaning  is  simply  "We  speak  of  the  secrets 
of  the  higher  degree  only  to  those  who  have  taken 


The  Baptism  of  our  Lord  111 

that  degree."  The  more  that  we  can  develop  of 
these  qualifications  now,  the  easier  will  be  our  task 
when  the  great  time  comes  for  us,  and  the  sooner 
will  that  time  come.  Therefore  we  should  already 
be  laying  a  foundation  even  for  the  very  highest  of 
the  steps  of  the  Path.  We  should  already  be 
familiar  with  what  we  have  to  do  in  the  unfold- 
ing of  our  inner  powers,  and  we  should  be  trying 
in  our  small  way  to  do  it.  We  should  try  with  all 
our  hearts,  with  all  our  minds,  with  all  our  strength. 

Not  that  we  can  immediately  succeed,  because  it 
is  a  work  of  a  long  time.  This  evolution  of  man  has 
continued  slowly  and  surely  through  thousands  and 
thousands  of  years  in  the  past.  Now  it  is  begin- 
ning to  quicken,  because  the  goal  is  coming  in  sight 
—because  now  we  are  beginning  to  move  intelli- 
gently in  the  right  direction,  instead  of  being  merely 
swept  hither  and  thither  by  all  kinds  of  cross  cur- 
rents. Evolution  is  moving  all  the  time,  and 
whether  we  take  an  intelligent  part  in  it  or  not, 
we  are  being  steadily  carried  onward  and  upward. 
But  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  understand  and  to  swim 
for  ourselves  instead  of  drifting  with  the  tide,  our 
progress  becomes  much  more  rapid,  and  we  can  co- 
operate with  comprehension  in  the  mighty  work 
which  God  is  doing  for  us.  So  it  is  worth  our  while 
to  try  to  understand  all  these  stages. 

The  first  Initiation  is  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
conquering  of  the  idea  of  separateness  and  the 
establishment  of  the  man  on  a  firm  basis;  the  second 
Initiation  deals  largely  with  the  development  of  his 
mental  and  psychic  powers  and  faculties.  The 
actual  effect  of  this  Initiation  is  an  enormous  expan- 
sion of  the  mental  body.  How  much  of  that  can 


112  &he  Christian  Festivals 

act  down  here  in  the  physical  brain  of  the  man  is 
quite  another  matter.  It  takes  many  years  for  the 
full  effect  of  that  Initiation  to  show  itself  in  the 
lower  life,  and  it  is  a  time  of  considerable  strain, 
and  even  of  danger  for  the  man  if  he  is  not  very 
careful  to  keep  his  vibrations  pure  and  high  and 
noble.  That  also  is  symbolized  in  the  gospel  drama, 
for  immediately  after  receiving  this  Baptism,  the 
Christ  retires  for  forty  days  into  the  desert  to 
strengthen  and  develop  Himself — to  adjust  the 
lower  vehicles  to  what  has  been  done  with  the  higher 
ones. 

Forty  days  may  suffice  for  a  Christ,  but  for 
most  of  us  forty  years  would  be  nearer  the  mark. 
Less  than  that  perhaps,  but  not  very  much  less  will  it 
take  us  to  adapt  ourselves  perfectly  to  the  develop- 
ment; but  the  work  must  be  done.  Some  will  not 
(or  possibly  cannot)  adjust  themselves,  and  those 
people  break.  To  safeguard  ourselves  against  that 
disaster  we  must  learn  at  an  earlier  stage  to  keep 
our  thoughts  on  a  pure,  high  level,  to  be  persistent 
always  in  well-doing,  to  have  the  one  unselfish 
object  of  helping  the  world  always  before  us,  and 
not  to  let  ourselves  be  diverted  from  it  by  any  sort 
of  prejudice,  or  by  any  sort  of  personal  feeling  or 
weakness  in  any  way.  So  shall  our  advance  proceed 
smoothly  and  steadily,  and  we  shall  progress  as  we 
are  meant  to  do. 

Every  step  of  the  path  brings  its  own  difficulties 
and  its  own  especial  strain;  but  every  step  of  the 
path  also  brings  its  own  enormous  accession  of 
strength  to  the  soul — to  the  ego,  the  true  man.  Pro- 
gress is  always  gradual,  particularly  at  this  stage 
of  which  we  are  speaking  now.  But  if  the  man 


%>he  Baptism  of  our  Lord  113 

succeeds,  that  which  is  so  beautifully  put  before  us 
in  the  Epistle  for  the  festival  of  the  Baptism  of 
our  Lord  becomes  true  of  him.  The  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  rests  upon  him,  because  he  is  drawn 
up  to  a  higher  level;  he  is  now  more  in  har- 
mony with  that  Spirit,  and  is  a  better  channel 
for  it.  So  the  Spirit  rests  upon  him,  the  Spirit  of 
wisdom  and  understanding,  the  Spirit  of  counsel 
and  of  might — of  great  wisdom,  but  also  of  great 
power;  the  Spirit  of  knowledge  and  of  reverence  to 
the  Lord.  Those  are  the  characteristics  which 
should  be  showing  forth  through  the  man  when  he 
reaches  that  level.  It  is  said  of  him:  "He  shall 
not  judge  after  the  sight  of  his  eyes"  (that  is, 
after  mere  outer  appearance),  "neither  reprove 
after  the  hearing  of  his  ears"  (that  is,  he  shall  not 
take  anything  on  hearsay),  "but  with  righteousness 
shall  He  judge  the  poor,  and  reprove  with  equity 
for"  (that  is,  on  'behalf  of)  "the  meek  of  the 
earth." 

You  will  notice  what  great  stress  is  laid  there 
upon  justice,  gentleness,  tolerance.  All  those  are 
the  characteristics  of  the  man  who  is  making  pro- 
gress, the  man  who  is  trying  to  bring  his  mind  into 
harmony  with  the  mind  of  the  Christ.  We  are  told 
in  another  place  in  our  scripture:  "Let  this  mind 
be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,"  and 
that  is  what  the  man  should  be  doing  at  this  stage 
of  his  Baptism  with  Fire.  Both  the  Christ  and 
John  the  Baptist  used  that  expression,  the  Baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  Fire,  showing  it  to  be 
really  a  technical  phrase  in  the  Mysteries,  refer- 
ring to  the  tremendous  downpouring  of  divine  force 
which  comes  at  that  second  Initiation  to  the  man 
who  is  fortunate  enough  to  reach  it. 


114  &he  Christian  Festivals 

Chief  among  his  characteristics,  then,  should  be 
righteousness,  faith,  fairness,  and,  above  all,  gentle- 
manliness.  A  great  poet  said  of  the  Christ  that 
He  was  the  first  true  gentleman  who  ever  lived.  All 
these  things  should  be  the  characteristics  of  our 
development  on  the  path.  It  is  said  of  the  Initiate 
that  he  shall  neither  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  the 
holy  mountain  of  that  higher  progress.  There 
shall  be  no  hurt,  no  power  or  fear  or  even  possi- 
bility of  hurting  the  feelings  or  the  reputation  of 
others.  Most  carefully,  most  skilfully  will  the  man 
who  is  drawing  thus  near  to  higher  things  order  his 
action,  his  speech  and  his  thought,  so  that  no  harm 
shall  be  done  by  any  of  these  to  any  living  creature. 
In  the  Hindu  Scripture  we  find  the  teaching  that 
ahimsa  or  perfect  harmlessness  is  the  great  charac- 
teristic of  the  developed  man:  harmlessness  not  only 
on  the  physical  plane,  but  on  the  emotional  and 
mental  as  well — that  the  man  shall  be  incapable  of 
harm,  not  only  that  he  shall  be  careful  not  to  harm. 
He  should  have  reached  the  stage  at  which  he  can 
do  only  good  to  his  fellowmen;  and  the  reason  why 
he  can  do  only  good  is  given  in  the  concluding 
words  of  the  Epistle — that  the  man  is  "full  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 
It  is  said  there  that  the  earth  shall  be  so  filled.  It 
will  be  a  long  time  yet  before  all  mankind  stands 
at  such  a  level  as  that,  before  absolutely  the  whole 
earth  shall  be  recognizably  filled  with  the  glory  of 
the  Lord.  In  truth  it  is  filled  with  that  glory  even 
now  if  we  can  only  see  it;  but  what  is  indicated  is 
a  condition  when  all  men  upon  earth  will  realize 
it,  when  His  will  shall  be  done  on  earth,  even  as 
it  is  in  heaven. 


Baptism  of  our  Lord  115 

We  are  far  from  that;  yet  perhaps  we  may  not 
be  so  far  from  it  as  we  sometimes  think.  We  are 
only  just  at  the  end  of  the  most  awful  war  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  and  though  that  actual  war  is 
over  and  justice  has  triumphed,  there  is  an  immense 
amount  of  social  unrest  all  over  the  world,  and  we 
have  not  arrived  at  a  millennium  yet.  Great  changes 
have  come,  and  are  in  process  of  coming;  surely 
there  will  be  on  the  whole  a  great  movement  to- 
wards good.  There  may  be  an  intermediate  time 
which  will  be  very  unpleasant,  while  things  are 
still  settling  down.  It  is  the  interval  of  readjust- 
ment, the  trough  between  two  waves  of  evolution, 
but  out  of  it  all,  we  hope  and  believe,  will  come 
something  grander  than  we  have  yet  seen.  Whether 
the  best  will  be  made  out  of  it  depends  upon  us,  as 
well  as  upon  other  people.  A  man  may  think,  "I 
am  not  a  person  of  any  importance.  I  have  a  vote 
certainly,  but  it  is  only  one  out  of  millions."  That 
is  not  the  point.  It  is  true  that  the  actual  govern- 
ment of  a  country  is  in  the  hands  of  its  politicians, 
but  any  kind  of  constitution,  any  arrangement  will 
work  well  if  the  hearts  of  the  people  are  right,  and 
if  they  have  loving  brotherly  feeling  one  towards 
another;  and  no  constitution,  however  excellent,  will 
work  satisfactorily  if  these  feelings  and  conditions 
are  absent.  So  everyone  of  us  has  a  share  in  this 
future — everyone  of  us  can  distinctly  help  in  his 
own  circle  to  make  it  possible  for  the  great  changes 
to  come  smoothly,  if  he  will  follow  such  teaching 
as  is  here  given  to  us  by  the  Church. 

That  is  why  we  should  be  educating  and  train- 
ing ourselves  to  take  due  part  in  the  life  that  lies 
before  us  all.  This  spiritual  development,  which 


116  &he  Christian  Festivals 

sometimes  seems  rather  far  away  and  in  the 
clouds,  is  not  really  far  from  us  at  all,  because 
we  gain  these  heights  step  by  step,  and  we  must 
be  developing  all  these  qualities  in  ourselves 
day  by  day  in  order  that  we  may  the  sooner  reach 
the  highest,  so  that  through  us  the  whole  world  can 
be  helped.  Those  who  are  clairvoyant,  those  who 
can  see,  know  as  a  fact  how  closely  the  world  is 
knit  together.  The  rest  must  take  it  largely  on 
evidence,  though  there  is  surely  plenty  of  evidence 
even  for  those  who  cannot  see.  No  man  liveth  to 
himself,  not  for  a  moment;  always  he  is  influencing 
other  people  by  his  thought,  his  feelings,  as  well 
as  by  what  he  does  and  what  he  is.  Every  man  has 
a  share  in  the  world 's  work,  and  every  man  must 
take  it.  And  if  you  who  draw  nearer  to  the  Christ 
will  follow  the  Christ  in  your  thoughts  and  words 
and  works,  then  shall  the  world  all  the  sooner  be 
ready  to  worship  at  His  Feet  and  to  follow  Him 
whither  He  would  lead  it,  when  (so  soon)  He  comes 
among  us  once  more. 

Even  now  at  our  present  stage  we  may  have  this 
much  share  in  this  second  Initiation — that  we  may 
try  to  develop  our  minds;  we  may  try  to  under- 
stand our  religion  intelligently.  Let  that  then  be 
for  you  the  lesson  of  this  festival.  "We  must  be 
able  to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  us. 
We  must  try  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the 
teachings  of  our  religion.  All  religions  are  the 
same,  in  that  all  alike  teach  us  that  the  path  of 
holiness  is  the  only  way  to  reach  final  perfection; 
but  our  especial  line  in  Christianity  is  to  try  to 
develop  ourselves  by  means  of  service  to  others, 


Baptism  of  our  Lord  117 

realizing  the  truth  of  the  words  which  the  Christ 
Himself  uttered:  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
the  least  of  these  My  little  ones,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  Me." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  TRANSFIGURATION 

•The  story  of  the  Transfiguration  is  that  the  Christ 
took  the  three  disciples  who  were  nearest  to  Him 
in  thought  and  mind  up  to  Mount  Tabor  and  then 
was  transfigured  before  them.  He  showed  Him- 
self to  them  as  the  radiant  augoeides — as  the  ego 
in  his  causal  body.  And  there  stood  two  typical 
people  beside  Him,  men  who  to  the  Jews  repre- 
sented the  two  sides  of  their  religion — the  law- 
giving  side,  the  side  of  Moses,  who  wrote  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  that  of  Elias,  who  was  the  first  and 
greatest,  they  considered,  of  their  prophets — their 
great  preachers.  These  two  men  appeared  and 
stood  talking  with  Him,  just  as  materializations 
might  appear  to-day;  and  then  they  were  sur- 
rounded by  a  luminous  cloud  from  which  came  a 
voice  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  that  of  God 
the  Father,  saying:  "This  is  my  beloved  Son  in 
Whom  I  am  well  pleased;  hear  ye  Him."  A  similar 
phenomenon  is  alleged  to  have  happened  at  the 
Baptism  of  Christ;  and  as  it  is  said  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  simultaneously  showed  Himself  in  the  shape 
of  a  dove,  that  Baptism  is  often  spoken  of  as  the 
only  occasion  on  which  the  Three  Persons  of  the 
Trinity  were  seen  together.  Some  have  thought 
that  all  Three  also  appeared  at  the  Transfiguration, 
suggesting  that  the  luminous  cloud  was  in  this  case 
a  manifestation  of  the  Third  Person.  The  story 
tells  us  that  when  the  cloud  dissipated,  only  Jesus 
in  His  ordinary  appearance  as  man  was  to  be  seen. 

118 


transfiguration  119 

When  we  read  of  the  Christ  as  taking  His  chosen 
disciples  (those  who  were  nearest  to  Him,  who  had 
therefore  the  opportunity  of  the  most  rapid  ad- 
vancement, whether  they  took  advantage  of  it  or 
not)  and  leading  them  up  into  a  mountain  alone, 
those  who  are  used  to.  Oriental  symbology  begin  to 
see  at  once  along  what  lines  our  thoughts  are  be- 
ing directed.  The  mountain  is  neither  Tabor  nor 
Hermon  in  that  inner  plane;  it  is  the  Mount  of 
Initiation — the  Mount  to  which  in  the  Collect  for 
the  festival  of  the  Transfiguration  we  pray  that  we 
may  all  come,  as  indeed  we  must;  and  to  climb  that 
holy  Mount  is  indeed  to  be  transfigured. 

Note  the  description  which  is  given  of  our  Lord 
and  of  those  who  attended  upon  Him.  It  says  that 
He  was  transfigured  before  them,  and  that  His 
raiment  was  white  and  glistering,  and  shone  like  the 
snow.  That  at  once  suggests  the  augoeides — the  glori- 
fied man ;  and  that  is  the  real  man,  the  ego.  The  phy- 
sical body  down  here  at  the  best  glows  but  very 
faintly;  the  astral  is  of  course  brighter;  the  mental 
brighter  still.  But  at  the  level  of  the  causal  body, 
man  indeed  looks  like  a  great  Angel,  for  that  is 
the  body  which  passes  on  from  life  to  life.  In  it 
nothing  which  is  evil  can  possibly  be  stored,  because 
that  is  the  law  of  Nature. 

That  causal  body,  which  is  the  vehicle  of  the  soul, 
is  permanent  from  the  time  we  leave  the  animal 
kingdom  until  the  time  that  we  become  supermen, 
reaching  something  outside  ordinary  humanity.  It 
is  built  of  matter  so  fine  that  it  will  not  respond 
to  those  grosser  vibrations  which  always  indicate 
what  down  here  we  call  evil.  A  man  may  have 
plenty  of  these  in  his  lower  vehicles;  he  may  feel 


120  The  Christian  Festivals 

evil,  he  may  think  evil,  but  the  evil  cannot  harm  the 
soul  within,  though  it  does  delay  him  in  his  progress. 

Suppose  we  find  a  well-developed  selfishness  in 
the  man  down  here,  characterized  perhaps  by  pride 
and  irritability.  If  we  are  able  to  look  at  his  astral 
body,  we  shall  see  clear  marks  there  of  these  unde- 
sirable qualities — the  dull,  dirty  brown  of  selfish- 
ness, the  strong  orange  of  pride  and  the  dull  red 
of  anger.  If  we  are  able  to  examine  the  mental 
body  we  shall  still  see  the  same  thing;  the  colours 
are  already  much  lighter  and  finer  there,  but  still 
they  are  the  same  colours.  But  if  we  look  at  his 
causal  body,  just  where  these  colours  were  so 
prominent  in  the  lower  vehicle  we  shall  find  simply 
an  empty  space.  What  then  is  the  matter  with 
that  man?  Why  is  he  selfish?  Why  is  he  proud? 
Why  is  he  angry?  Because  he  has  not  yet  built 
into  himself  the  contrary  virtues.  When  he  has 
built  into  himself  unselfishness,  that  will  appear  in 
his  causal  body,  and  then  if  we  examine  the  lower 
bodies  we  shall  see  the  same  vivid  colour  repro- 
duced there.  But  so  long  as  selfishness  is  showing 
in  the  lower  vehicles,  that  clearly  indicates  that  un- 
selfishness has  not  been  developed  in  the  higher.  If 
he  shows  anger  in  the  lower,  then  patience  is  not 
unfolded  fully  in  the  soul.  If  he  shows  pride  in 
the  lower,  humility  and  right  judgment  are  not  yet 
evolved  as  soul  qualities.  Most  happily  and  for- 
tunately for  us,  all  the  good  that  we  may  develop 
within  ourselves  registers  itself  permanently;  the 
evil  that  appears  cannot  register  itself  at  all.  True, 
we  bring  it  over  from  another  life,  but  that  is  be- 
cause we  bring  over  the  permanent  atom  of  each  of 
the  lower  planes.  The  soul  cannot  record  it,  and  con- 


transfiguration 

sequently  'every  vibration  in  the  direction  of  good 
is  a  step  permanently  taken;  every  slip  backward 
is  by  the  law  of  Nature  a  temporary  thing.  This  is 
indeed  fortunate,  because  otherwise  in  our  earlier 
struggles  in  savage  lives  we  should  assuredly  have 
built  into  ourselves  so  much  evil  that  it  might  have 
taken  us  many  lives,  perhaps  even  aeons,  to 
straighten  out  again. 

That  vision  of  the  glorified  body  has  often  been 
seen.  We  read  stories  in  the  traditions  of  the 
Church  of  saints  displaying  for  a  time  the  ap- 
pearance of  great  Angels.  We  may  see  such  things 
often  in  our  Church  services  if  we  have  eyes  to  see. 
We  pray  in  our  Benediction  Service  that  Christ 
shall  open  His  eyes  in  us  in  order  that  we  may  see 
these  wonderful  things,  .these  splendid  shining 
forms. 

That  Transfiguration  lies  before  every  one  of  us. 
It  is  for  us  so  to  live  that  that  splendour,  that  glory 
which  dwells  within  each  of  us  even  now  shall 
be  able  to  show  itself  forth.  Christ  said  to  His 
people:  "Ye  are  gods;  ye  are  all  the  children  of 
the  most  High."  He  did  not  say  ''You  will  be 
gods  some  time";  not  "You  shall  be,"  but  "You 
are."  You  are  here  and  now  divine;  the  spirit  in 
you  is  a  spark  of  the  divine  Spirit.  You  have  only 
to  let  it  show  forth  and  you  have  won  that  for 
which  you  are  sent  here;  "you  have  wrought  the 
purpose  through  of  that  which  made  you  man,"  as 
another  great  Teacher  has  said. 

So  this  festival  conveys  to  us  the  lesson  that  every 
one  of  us  is  capable  of  that  Transfiguration;  that 
it  will  in  time  come  inevitably  to  every  one  of  us, 
and  that  we  must  bear  that  great  fact  in  mind 


122  &he  Christian  Festivals 

and  so  live  that  we  may  show  forth  in  our  outward 
lives  the  glory  of  the  Christ  Who  dwells  in  us. 

An  interesting  feature  of  the  symbolism  is  that 
which  brings  the  commemoration  of  Christ's  Presen- 
tation in  His  Father's  Temple  just  towards  the  end 
of  the  week  devoted  to  celebrating  the  Transfigura- 
tion. According  to  the  Jewish  law  every  first-born 
son  was  holy  to  the  Lord,  and  was  definitely  devoted 
to  Him  as  His  priest.  I  am  afraid  that  they  had 
inherited  the  idea  from  a  much  lower  condition  of 
civilization  in  which  the  first-born  son  was  offered 
as  a  sacrifice;  but  that  does  not  appear  even  at  the 
time  of  the  writing  of  the  bible.  There  it  is  only 
said  that  he  was  holy  to  the  Lord,  and  that  the 
father  and  mother  therefore  had  to  buy  him  back 
from  the  Lord  by  offering  something  else  instead 
of  him.  They  were  to  offer  a  lamb,  but  a  lamb 
(though  not  very  costly)  being  still  beyond  the 
means  of  some,  they  were  allowed  to  offer  two 
pigeons  instead,  and  we  read  in  the  New  Testament 
how  the  Blessed  Virgin,  taking  the  two  pigeons  and 
the  young  child,  went  to  present  Him  in  the  Temple, 
and  to  present  herself  also  for  purification  from  the 
unequalled  nobility  of  motherhood. 

It  is  a  strange  idea  that  the  greatest  function  in 
the  world  for  woman  is  one  from  which  it  is  neces- 
sary for  her  afterwards  to  be  purified.  But  that 
idea  runs  through  many  religions.  It  is  strong  in 
Hinduism;  a  trace  of  it  appears  in  the  Anglican 
and  Roman  Churches  in  the  curious  service  called 
the  Churching  of  Women.  In  the  Liberal  Catholic 
Church  we  have  dropped  the  custom,  because  we  do 
not  think  that  a  woman  needs  purification  after  ful- 
filling the  highest  and  noblest  office  open  to 


transfiguration  123 

humanity — the  provision  of  a  vehicle  for  an  evolving 
ego.  But  still  that  was  the  law  in  Judaea,  and 
according  to  that  law,  forty  days  after  the  birth  of 
Jesus  the  Blessed  Virgin  brought  her  child  to  pre- 
sent Him  to  the  Lord.  The  story  tells  us  that 
Simeon  happened  to  be  in  the  Temple  at  the  time, 
and  in  his  thankfulness  for  having  seen  the  promised 
Messiah  he  gave  us  the  Nunc  Dimittis,  that  beauti- 
ful canticle  which  we  still  use.  to  this  day:  "Lord, 
now  lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  ac- 
cording to  Thy  word.  For  mine  eyes  have  seen 
Thy  Salvation  which  was  prepared  before  the  face 
of  all  people,  to  be  a  Light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles, 
and  to  be  the  glory  of  Thy  people  Israel." 

That  is  the  outer  story;  whether  it  be  true  or 
not,  I  do  not  know.  But  turn  to  its  symbology; 
what  does  it  mean?  As  I  pointed  out  before,  all 
this  symbology  has  at  least  two  meanings,  and 
sometimes  more.  It  indicates  the  stages  in  the  life 
of  the  Initiate,  but  also  the  stages  of  the  descent 
of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  into 
matter — a  great  system  of  cosmogony,  which  is 
given  in  some  form  in  every  religion.  Unfortu- 
nately, instead  of  taking  our  own  system  from  the 
Creed,  most  Christians  have  preferred  to  accept 
that  of  the  Jews,  enshrined  in  the  first  two  chap- 
ters of  the  book  of  Genesis,  which  is  far  less  clear 
than  that  given  in  the  Gnostic  teaching  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

This  third  Initiation  carries  with  it  a  certain 
privilege  which  is  symbolized  in  this  offering  in  the 
Temple.  At  that  step  man  is  changed  all  the  way 
through.  The  ego,  the  soul  of  the  man  is  changed, 
because  it  is  brought  into  closer  touch  with  the 


124  Ghe  Christian  Festivals 

Monad,  the  mighty  divine  spark  which  is  in  every 
one  of  us — or  rather  hovers  over  every  one  of  us, 
Gradually  we  have  to  come  into  touch  with  it  and 
learn  to  express  it,  that  we  also  may  be  gods,  as 
Christ  said  to  His  people.  Then  the  personality  in 
turn,  the  man  we  know  down  here,  is  transfigured 
at  that  Initiation,  because  it  is  brought  into  so 
much  closer  touch  with  the  soul  behind.  So  the 
operation  is  well  symbolized  as  a  Transfiguration. 
But  at  that  particular  step  not  only  does  the  man 
in  that  way  come  face  to  face  with  his  Father  Who 
is  in  heaven  (that  is  to  say,  with  the  God  which  is 
within  us),  but  also  he  comes  face  to  face  with  the 
outer  manifestation  of  that  great  Father.  He 
comes  into  touch  with  the  Representative  here  in 
this  world  of  what  we  often  call  the  Solar  Deity. 
There  is  a  great  Hierarchy  governing  the  world  and 
directing  it.  The  world  is  not  left  to  itself;  there 
are  "Just  Men  made  perfect"  Who  hold  certain 
definite  offices  in  the  inner  and  spiritual  Govern- 
ment of  the  world,  just  as  Ministers  of  the  Crown 
hold  definite  offices  in  our  outer  Government  here 
on  the  physical  plane. 

There  is,  then,  a  spiritual  King — a  Leader  of 
evolution  for  each  planet.  We  refer  to  Him  in  that 
last  Benediction,  when  we  speak  of  Him  as  the  One 
Initiator,  the  great  Head  of  all  the  Saints  belong- 
ing to  this  earth.  Now  it  is  in  the  Name  of  that 
spiritual  King  that  all  Initiations  are  given — all 
degrees  are  conferred,  as  we  should  put  it  in  more 
physical  language — though  in  all  the  earlier  stages 
some  one  acts  for  Him  as  a  deputy,  His  special  per- 
mission being  given  for  each  occasion.  But  the 
man  who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  reach  this  third  stage 


The  Transfiguration  125 

comes  face  to  face  with  that  spiritual  King  Him- 
self, for  it  is  the  rule  that  immediately  after  this 
step  the  neophyte  must  be  presented  to  Him.  Indeed, 
in  some  special  cases  He  Himself  takes  charge  of 
the  Initiation  and  confers  it  instead  of  having  it 
conferred  through  a  deputy. 

That  is  why  in  connection  with  the  feast  of  the 
Transfiguration  comes  the  feast  of  the  Presen- 
tation of  Christ  in  the  Temple,  His  presentation 
directly  to  His  Father,  because  that  is  what  is  sym- 
bolized when  we  are  taking  it  all  to  mean  the 
Mystery-Drama  of  the  progress  of  man.  The  man 
who  has  been  transfigured  is  brought  into  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Representative  of  His  Father  in  heaven. 
That  is  a  secondary  meaning  lying  behind  the  fact 
that  he  is  presented  to  his  own  Monad,  which  is 
truly  his  Father  in  heaven,  the  God  within  us. 

I  mentioned  just  now  that  this  Mystery-Drama 
symbolizes  not  only  the  progress  of  man,  but  also 
the  progress  of  the  whole  world.  In  Neo-Platonism 
and  the  Greek  philosophies  they  speak  constantly  of 
the  microcosm  and  the  macrocosm.  Cosmos  is  the 
world  or  universe;  micro  and  macro  mean  little  and 
big  respectively.  So  we  have  the  small  world,  the 
world  of  man  himself,  and  we  have  the  greater  world, 
which  is  in  this  case  the  solar  system.  The  evolu- 
tion of  man  and  that  of  the  solar  system  have  cer- 
tain points  in  common  which  are  of  great  interest 
to  the  student,  because  if  we  understand  one  of 
them,  through  that  we  may  understand  the  other, 
making  certain  allowances  for  difference  of  planes. 
The  Church's  year  indicates  all  these  things,  though 
of  course  it  is  only  one  of  many  systems  of  presen- 
tation. They  appear  even  more  clearly  in  some 


126  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  the  older  religions — in  Buddhism,  in  Hinduism, 
in  Zoroastrianism ;  but  the  early  Church  Fathers 
were  most  anxious  to  assert  that  their  religion  fell 
in  no  way  behind  the  others.  "If  you  have  Mys- 
teries" they  said  to  those  with  whom  they  argued, 
"which  explain  to  you  all  these  wonderful  things, 
we  also  have  Mysteries  which  explain  just  the  same 
things  to  us."  But  unfortunately  in  that  long 
period  of  the  dark  ages,  when  most  things  were  for- 
gotten which  were  worth  remembering,  they  con- 
trived to  lose  all  the  inner  meaning  of  these  won- 
derful allegories,  and  so  consequently  they  are  left 
suspended  in  air  with  only  a  physical  story. 

If  we  are  thinking  of  cosmogony  (that  is,  of  the 
making  of  the  solar  system)  then  the  Annunciation 
represents  the  sending  out  of  the  Third  Person  of 
the  Blessed  Trinity.  It  was  the  Holy  Ghost  which 
descended  on  the  Virgin  Mary ;  and  that  typifies  that 
First  Outpouring  of  which  we  have  read  in  other 
books  where  these  facts  are  presented  more  in  the 
Oriental  form.  The  Holy  Spirit  broods  over  the 
face  of  the  waters,  which  is  only  another  way  of 
saying  that  that  First  Outpouring  descends  into, 
hovers  over  and  penetrates  the  virgin  seas  of  matter, 
which  are  typified  in  the  Greek  system  by  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  whose  Latin  name  Maria  is 
the  plural  of  mare,  the  sea;  so  that  her  very  name 
implies  a  symbology  so  patent  that  we  can  scarcely 
speak  of  it  as  veiled  at  all. 

The  whole  thing  is  a  vast  and  beautiful  allegory, 
in  which  that  first  descent  is  symbolized  by  the 
Annunciation,  and  a  long  time  after  that  (the  way 
having  been  slowly  prepared  within  the  womb  of 
matter  by  that  Third  Aspect  which  we  call  God  the 


transfiguration  127 

Holy  Ghost)  the  Second  Aspect,  God  the  Son, 
descends  into  matter,  and  Christ  is  born  as  on  Christ- 
mas Day.  That  is  the  Second  Outpouring.  But 
that  fructification  of  matter,  that  vivifying  of  it, 
takes  time;  and  so  in  the  allegory  it  shows  its  result 
forty  days  after  the  birth  in  the  festival  of  the 
purification  of  the  great  seas  of  matter,  which 
means  their  vivifying  and  their  elevation  by  the 
presence  in  them,  the  blossoming  out  through  them, 
of  this  Second  great  Aspect. 

This  result  appears  when  the  new-born  Christ  is 
presented  to  the  Father — that  is,  when  the  Third 
Outpouring  (which  comes  from  the  First  Aspect, 
the  First  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity)  comes  upon 
it;  and  that  perfected  purification  of  matter  is 
typified  by  the  Presentation  of  the  Christ  in  His 
Temple  to  His  Father.  That  is  the  presentation  of 
the  wine  in  the  Cup  of  the  Holy  Grail,  the  presen- 
tation (within  the  cup  of  his  causal  body)  of  the 
ego  which  all  through  this  long  course  of  evolution 
has  been  prepared.  Then  flashes  down  the  ray  of 
the  First  Person  from  above,  so  that  the  ego  is  con- 
nected with  the  Monad,  and  the  Christ  is  presented 
to  His  Father  within  the  Temple  of  His  causal 
body. 

On  the  festival  of  the  Presentation  we  begin  our 
service  in  violet,  to  indicate  the  process  of  purifica- 
tion, because  that  is  the  colour  which  bears  the 
purifying  vibrations;  but  when  the  Christ  comes 
into  His  Temple  (which  is  symbolized  by  the  carry- 
ing in  of  the  Host,  the  vehicle,  the  vahan,  of  the 
Christ)  we  change  our  frontal  and  vestments  to 
white  to  receive  Him,  and  we  light  all  the  candles 


128  The  Christian  Festivals 

which  have  given  to  this  festival  the  name  of  Candle- 
mas Day,  because  Christ  is  the  Light  of  the  world. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  Church,  pre- 
cisely as  in  Freemasonry,  a  magnificent  and  stately 
ritual  has  been  handed  down  through  the  centuries, 
with  the  most  meticulous  care  that  none  of  its 
highly  significant  details  should  be  changed  in  the 
slightest  degree.  It  is  certain  that  in  both  cases 
those  who  so  loyally  fulfilled  their  charge  had  no 
conception  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  ceremonies 
whose  integrity  they  so  carefully  guarded;  but  as 
a  result  of  their  faithful  service  we  are  now  able 
to  interpret  exactly  the  information  which  the 
original  founders  of  these  systems  intended  to  con- 
vey to  their  followers. 


CHAPTEE  VII 
LENT 

DUE  ATTITUDE   TOWARDS   LENT 

The  word  Lent  means  spring,  for  in  the  northern 
hemisphere,  where  the  Christian  faith  began,  Lent 
is  necessarily  always  observed  in  that  season  of  the 
year,  as  it  is  the  time  of  preparation  for  the  Easter 
festival,  the  date  of  which  is  determined  by  the 
vernal  equinox.  This  period  of  preparation  is  in- 
tended to  last  for  forty  days,  and  as  it  has  been  made 
a  penitential  season  it  was  felt  that  the  Sundays, 
which  are  always  joyous  in  commemoration  of  the 
Eesurrection,  could  not  be  included;  so  that  the 
first  day  of  Lent,  commonly  called  Ash  Wednesday, 
is  actually  forty-six  days  before  Easter.  That 
curious  name  was  given  to  the  day  because  of  a 
quaint  mediaeval  custom  of  smearing  ashes  on  the 
forehead  on  that  occasion  as  a  token  of  sorrow  for 
sin — a  custom  derived  from  the  ancient  Jews.  Even 
now  in  churches  of  the  Roman  •  obedience  the  sanc- 
tified palm-branches  which  have  been  preserved  since 
Palm  Sunday  of  the  previous  year  are  burnt  on 
Ash  Wednesday,  and  the  priest,  dipping  his  thumb 
into  the  ashes,  makes  a  cross  therewith  on  the  fore- 
head of  each  member  of  his  congregation  before  be- 
ginning the  Mass.  We  have  not  adopted  this  custom 
in  our  Liberal  Catholic  Church,  as  it  is  not  in  har- 
mony with  our  attitude  in  these  matters. 

The  present  idea  of  observing  the  forty  days  of 
Lent  was  unknown  in  the  early  Church.  It  began 
with  a  celebration  of  forty  hours — net  forty  days. 

129 

i 


130  The  Christian  Festivals 

It  was  calculated  that  the  Christ — or  rather  His 
body — lay  in  the  sepulchre  about  forty  hours,  and 
it  was  thought  by  many  earnest  Christians  that  it 
was  a  meet  and  fitting  thing  to  observe  that  time 
during  which  the  body  of  our  Lord  was  untenanted 
as  a  time  of  fasting.  Fasting  then  probably  meant 
absolutely  going  without  food;  but  when  the  idea 
came  to  be  extended  to  forty  days,  in  harmony  with 
the  alleged  forty  days'  fasting  in  the  wilderness, 
naturally  it  began  to  be  quite  a  different  thing,  and 
merely  to  be  an  abstinence  from  certain  kinds  of 
food,  or  from  eating  as  fully  as  at  other  seasons.  In 
the  present  day,  it  usually  means  abstinence  from 
flesh  meat,  but  even  as  to  that  there  are  many 
dispensations. 

Furthermore,  the  fast  was  observed  in  varying 
degrees.  For  a  long  time  the  first,  middle  and  last 
weeks  were  kept  as  a  fast,  but  not  the  intervening 
period,  so  that  the  whole  thing  has  not  behind  it 
any  strong  apostolic  or  early  sanction,  but  is  simply 
one  of  the  customs  which  have  grown  up  in  the 
Church.  It  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  time  of 
self-examination  and  of  sorrow  for  sin.  In  our 
Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  take  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent attitude  with  regard  to  all  this.  We  do  not 
regard  this  season  as  a  time  of  mourning,  but  as  a 
time  of  preparation  for  the  mighty  feast  of  Easter, 
and  we  know  that  we  cannot  celebrate  that  great 
feast  properly  and  obtain  from  it  the  benefit  which 
the  Church  means  us  to  obtain,  unless  we  have  care- 
fully prepared  ourselves  as  we  are  directed  to  do 
during  this  season.  It  is  not  to  be  a  time  for  mourn- 
ing for  sin,  but  it  is  to  be  a  time  of  endeavouring 
to  shake  ourselves  free  from  sin.  Assuredly  we  re- 


Lent  131 

gret  our  sins  and  we  wish  to  become  perfect,  but 
we  feel  (because  we  know  something  scientifically 
about  the  power  and  the  effect  of  thought)  that  it  is 
advisable  not  to  dwell  upon  sins  and  to  mourn  over 
them,  but  simply  to  make  a  strong  short  resolve  not 
to  do  that  particular  thing  again,  and  then  put  the 
thought  aside.  As  a  great  Master  once  said:  "The 
only  repentance  which  is  in  the  least  worth  while  is 
the  resolve  not  to  do  it  again."  That  is  true;  that 
is  common  sense;  and  that  is  the  saner  and  better 
way,  we  think,  to  look  at  these  matters. 

With  regard  to  physical  fasting,  we  leave  all  our 
people  absolutely  free  to  practise  it  if  they  wish, 
but  we  do  not  recommend  it  as  having  any  virtue 
in  itself.  Asceticism  per  se  is  of  no  value  whatever. 
The  old  idea  about  it  (I  am  going  back  now  to  pre- 
Christian  times,  although  I  think  the  influence  of 
the  theory  subsisted  into  the  Christian  period  too) 
was  that  the  gods  were  jealous  of  the  good  fortune 
or  happiness  of  men,  and  that  the  man  who  volun- 
tarily made  himself  unhappy  thereby  escaped  some- 
thing of  this  jealousy,  and  prevented  them  from 
visiting  him  with  some  evil  or  punishment  to  remind 
him  of  their  existence  and  their  power.  Then  it 
came  to  be  thought  that  the  mortification  of  the 
body,  the  abstinence  from  pleasure  of  all  kinds,  was 
in  itself  pleasing  to  God.  You  find  that  idea  per- 
meating Christianity  very  strongly  in  the  early 
days,  and  all  through  the  Middle  Ages — that  austeri- 
ties and  tortures  of  various  kinds  were  in  themselves 
good  things.  It  is  quite  certain  that  in  themselves 
they  are  not  good  things.  In  a  much  older  scrip- 
ture than  any  of  ours,  God  speaks  of  those  "who 
torture  Me,  dwelling  in  their  bodies,"  realizing  that 


132  The  Christian  Festivals 

they  also  are  part  of  God,  and  that  suffering  in- 
flicted for  suffering's  sake  is  not  pleasing  to  Him 
in  any  way.  Another  theory  was  that  by  inflicting 
pain  upon  themselves,  they  escaped  (by  anticipat- 
ing it)  somewhat  of  the  punishment  which  would 
otherwise  fall  upon  them.  They  felt  that  they  had 
done  all  sorts  of  wicked  things,  the  result  of  which 
must  be  suffering  in  some  form,  and  thought  that 
if  they  punished  themselves  here  they  would  perhaps 
escape  punishment  by  God  hereafter. 

All  that  is,  of  course,  quite  foreign  to  a  sane  and 
common-sense  way  of  looking  at  things.  That  we  live 
under  a  mighty  and  utterly  just  law  of  cause  and 
effect  no  one  who  studies  nature  can  doubt,  but 
"Vengeance  is  mine;  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord." 
That  is  to  say,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature 
each  man  will  receive  according  to  what  he  has 
done  whether  it  be  bad  or  good,  and  there  is  no 
escape  from  that.  "Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not 
mocked;  whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also 
reap." 

Therefore  we  do  not  think  that  there  is  any 
special  merit  in  going  without  food.  There  are 
those  who  think  far  too  highly  of  food  and  of  drink ; 
there  are  gluttons,  there  are  wine-bibbers,  there  are 
drunkards,  and  for  such  people  certainly  it  is  well 
not  only  in  Lent,  but  at  all  times,  to  call  a  halt,  and 
to  be  sane  and  wise  about  their  eating  and  drinking, 
as  about  everything  else.  Perhaps  many  people  eat 
and  drink  more  than  they  need;  but  that  is  another 
matter.  I  am  doubtful  as  to  the  use  and  efficacy  of 
fasting,  especially  in  these  days.  It  may  have  had 
its  use  in  mediaeval  times,  when  people  lived  a  much 
more  leisurely  life,  and  had  nothing  particular  to 


\ 


Lent  133 

do.  They  were  in  the  habit  of  eating  much  coarse 
food;  we  constantly  read  of  an  ox  being  roasted  on 
an  occasion  of  festivity;  so  perhaps  it  did  them  no 
harm  to  fast;  it  may  even  have  been  beneficial.  But 
in  these  days  we  live  under  high  pressure  and  great 
nervous  strain,  and  abstinence  from  food  is  not 
likely  to  be  useful  to  us. 

What  I  wish  to  make  clearly  understood  is  that 
we  do  not  hold  that  any  kind  of  self-mortification 
is  pleasing  to  God  as  such.  The  one  thing  that  is 
pleasing  to  Him  is  that  if  we  have  made  mistakes, 
if  we  have  sinned  (as  we  all  have)  we  should  make 
a  real  earnest  endeavour  not  to  do  it  again.  We 
need  not  waste  our  time  and  force  being  sorry 
about  it,  but  we  should  make  a  strong  resolve  to 
avoid  that  weakness  for  the  future.  Even  if  we 
fall  a  thousand  times,  we  must  get  up  again  the 
thousandth  time  and  go  on.  There  is  just  the 
same  reason  for  trying  again  after  our  thousandth 
failure  as  there  was  after  our  first. 

Yet  another  point:  Many  people  in  old  days  felt 
that  by  fasting  they  might  gain  spiritual  powers 
and  visions.  We  know  that  people  who  are  dying 
of  starvation  frequently  have  visions  of  different 
kinds.  Undoubtedly  when  the  physical  body  is 
failing,  the  astral  and  the  other  higher  bodies  come 
into  more  prominence;  so  to  starve  oneself  to  the 
verge  of  death  might  be  one  method  of  developing 
higher  faculties;  but  it  is  entirely  the  wrong  way, 
because  to  have  such  faculty  in  any  form  in  which 
it  is  really  useful,  the  possessor  must  be  in  perfect 
health.  All  the  clairvoyance  that  has  ever  been 
taught  to  me  has  required  perfect  physical  health 
and  perfect  balance  as  pre-requisites,  and  to  culti- 


134  The  Christian  Festivals 

vate  these  seems  to  me  the  best  and  safest  way  to 
the  attainment  of  the  higher  faculties.  To  get 
oneself  into  an  unhealthy  and  pathological  condition 
is  never  the  right  way  to  any  true  advancement. 

I  have  no  sympathy  with  most  of  the  hymns 
which  are  generally  used  in  Lent.  They  are  often 
full  of  blood  and  misery  and  cringing,  and  of  hints 
about  eternal  damnation.  To  say: 

Once  more  the  solemn  season  calls, 

A  holy  fast  to  keep; 
And  now  within  the  temple  walls 

Both  priest  and  people  weep. 

Or 

Mercy,  good  Lord,  mercy  I  ask 
*         This  is  my  humble  prayer; 
For  mercy,  Lord,  in  all  my  suit, 
O  let  Thy  mercy  spare. 

seems  to  me  not  only  ridiculous,  but  nauseating.  If 
people  would  only  realize  how  tiresome  this  sort  of 
thing  must  be  to  the  Deity,  they  would  perhaps  be 
less  sycophantic.. 

It  may  have  come  in  our  way  to  try  to  tame  an 
animal;  if  it  has  been  badly  treated  it  shrinks,  and 
cannot  be  persuaded  to  come  near.  If  the  creature 
would  only  come  at  once,  the  friendly  human  could 
show  his  good  will;  but  it  shrinks  and  will  not  ap- 
proach him,  and  enormous  patience  is  needed.  But 
why  should  we  take  that  attitude  with  regard  to  a 
Loving  Father?  That  is  exactly  the  position  which 
these  blasphemous  hymns  take  all  through.  They 
are  full  of  cries  for  mercy,  begging  Him  just  to 
wait  a  moment  before  He  destroys  His  children  for 
ever!  Think  how  you  would  like  to  have  a  child 
in  that  attitude  towards  you,  and  perhaps  you  will 


Lent  135 

begin  to  see  just  a  little  how  much  unnecessary 
trouble  we  give  to  the  God  and  Father  of  us  all. 
If  we  would  only  trust  Him,  so  much  more  could 
be  done;  and  our  progress  would  be  so  much  more 
rapid. 

I  very  strongly  disapprove  of  all  this  cringing, 
terror  and  fear;  it  may  have  been  appropriate  in 
the  regime  of  the  savage  and  bloodthirsty  Jewish 
Jehovah,  but  it  is  quite  out  of  place  in  the  religion 
established  by  Christ,  Who  came  to  preach  a  Lov- 
ing Father.  Why  cannot  we  forget  the  misinter- 
pretations of  the  Jewish  race  and  trust  our  own 
Leader,  Who  tells  us  that  God  is  Love,  Whose  one 
desire  for  us  is  that  we  should  be  one  with  Him, 
even  as  He  is  one  with  the  Father?  "Perfect  love 
casteth  out  fear." 

So  the  hymns  sung  during  Lent  in  our  Church 
should  be  those  that  suggest  to  us  what  to  do,  and 
tell  us  the  attitude  in  which  we  should  put  our- 
selves so  as  to  get  the  greatest  benefit  from  what 
is  to  come.  The  idea  of  fasting  as  pleasing  to  God 
or  gaining  higher  spirituality  is,  I  myself  think,  a 
mistaken  notion;  but  if  anyone  feels  that  he  wishes 
to  fast,  let  him  worship  God  in  his  own  way  if  he 
will;  we  have  no  objection,  but  we  do  not  advise  it. 
Our  whole  attitude  is  different  in  all  these  things; 
we  consider  that  God,  Who  gave  us  our  intellect  and 
common  sense,  expects  us  to  use  that  common  sense 
in  religion  as  in  daily  life. 

The  idea  of  self-examination  is  good  and  neces- 
sary. But  with  that,  too,  we  must  be  sane  and  care- 
ful, otherwise  it  will  degenerate  into  morbid  self- 
introspection,  and  we  shall  spend  all  our  time  in 
picking  the  machinery  to  pieces  instead  of  going 


136  The  Christian  Festivals 

on  and  doing  the  work.  We  are  here  in  order  to 
serve  God,  and  we  can  do  Him  best  service  when 
we  are  ourselves  perfect  instruments  in  His  hands. 
Therefore  it  is  our  business  when  we  know  of  weak 
points  in  our  armour  to  endeavour  to  strengthen 
them;  it  is  our  business  to  examine  ourselves  to  the 
extent  of  seeing  in  what  way  we  fall  short,  and  to 
make  a  determined  endeavour  not  to  fall  short  in 
that  way  again.  It  is  a  good  thing  that  a  certain 
season  of  the  year  should  be  set  apart  for  that; 
not  that  we  should  not  always  be  on  the  watch 
against  weaknesses  and  failings,  but  that  it  is  especi- 
ally needed  now,  because  Lent  is  a  preparation  for 
the  great  festival  of  Easter. 

On  that  occasion  comes  the  greatest  outpouring 
of  divine  power  during  the  whole  of  our  Christian 
year.  In  order  to  take  advantage  of  it,  in  order  to 
make  the  best  use  of  it,  we  must  certainly  prepare 
ourselves,  and  so  this  season  of  Lent  is  arranged  in 
order  that  we  should,  as  it  were,  take  stock  of  our- 
selves. Having  discovered  our  weak  points,  let  us 
go  to  work  with  a  will  and  cure  them,  for  only 
when  we  have  conquered  those  weaknesses  shall  we 
be  able  fully  to  observe  the  great  feast  of  Easter 
as  it  should  be  observed,  and  to  gain  from  it  all 
that  we  ought  to  gain.  A  great  writer  has  said: 
"Any  man  may  make  a  mistake,  but  the  man  who 
makes  the  same  mistake  twice  is  a  fool."  All  of  us 
make  these  mistakes — all  without  exception,  how- 
ever good  we  may  be,  however  hard  we  may  try; 
because  we  are  still  human  beings  and  not  yet  great 
saints.  Often  we  make  them  over  and  over  again, 
day  after  day.  Now  it  would  be  foolish  to  be  cast 
down  about  that  and  to  regard  it  as  evidence  of 


Lent  137 

horrible  depravity.  The  extravagant  language  which 
is  often  applied  in  cases  of  this  sort  is  entirely 
out  of  place;  it  is  misleading,  and  it  is  dis- 
honouring both  to  man  and  God.  We  are  far 
from  perfect,  and  quite  certainly  mistakes  we  shall 
make  for  a  long  time  yet,  but  of  course  it  is  our 
business  to  try  to  make  as  few  as  possible.  The  per- 
fection of  the  soul  in  man  is  like  the  slow  growth 
of  a  great  tree — it  is  something  not  to  be  attained 
in  a  moment,  a  day,  a  month,  a  year;  it  may  take 
many  lives  such  as  we  are  living  now  before  we 
reach  it. 

Since  we  all  make  errors,  it  would  be  natural  that 
we  should  be  gentle,  charitable,  ready  to  excuse  when 
we  see  similar  mistakes  in  others.  Unfortunately 
that  is  not  our  habit.  There  are  certain  special  rea- 
sons why  such  allowance  is  difficult  for  us — the 
principal  one  being  that  under  God's  mighty  law 
man  is  evolving  slowly,  and  the  present  stage  of 
his  evolution  is  the  development  of  what  is  called 
the  lower  mind,  the  discriminating  faculty  in  man; 
we  are  learning  to  discriminate  between  things  by 
the  differences  between  them.  That  is  why  we  are 
getting  such  a  development  of  the  intellect  in  science 
and  in  other  ways  in  this  particular  stage  of  the 
world's  history.  Our  idea  of  criticism  is  to  pounce 
upon  the  flaws  in  anything.  That  is  quite  wrong, 
because  "  criticism "  comes  from  the  Greek  word 
kritein,  which  means  to  judge,  so  that  "critical" 
really  has  the  same  signification  as  judicial,  but  we 
do  not  use  it  so.  With  us  it  means  as  a  rule  finding 
fault,  because  we  are  at  that  stage  when  that  is 
the  natural  thing  for  us  to  do.  The  critical  faculty 
is  being  trained  in  us;  all  the  more  then  is  it  neces- 


138  The  Christian  Festivals 

sary  that  we  should  not  misuse  it,  that  we  should 
be  on  our  guard  not  to  criticize  too  readily.  We 
cannot  help  seeing  the  mistakes  that  other  people 
make;  I  wish  we  were  as  quick  to  see  our  own;  but 
at  any  rate  it  is  most  assuredly  our  duty  to  be  criti- 
cal in  the  true  sense  (that  is  to  say,  judicial)  and 
to  withhold  any  decision  with  regard  to  what  an- 
other man  does  or  says  until  we  know  all  about  it, 
and  we  have  all  the  evidence  before  us. 

It  is  not  the  custom  of  the  world,  but  it  ought 
to  be  our  custom,  and  we  must  try  to  make  it  so. 
We  must  learn  not  to  impute  motives  to  other 
people.  One  who  happens  to  have  developed  the 
faculty  of  clairvoyance  gets  many  surprises  in  dif- 
ferent directions,  and  one  of  them  is  that  he  sees 
that  the  reasons  for  which  people  do  things  are 
hardly  ever  the  reasons  that  he  would  previously 
have  attributed  to  them.  About  nine  times  out  of 
ten  we  are  quite  wrong  when  we  proceed  to  attri- 
bute a  motive  to  some  other  person  for  something 
that  he  does.  He  has  all  sorts  of  considerations  in 
his  mind  that  are  unknown  to  us,  and  therefore  we 
do  him  gross  injustice  in  many  cases  simply  because 
of  our  ignorance. 

That  being  so,  surely  it  would  be  wise,  it  would 
be  dignified  (to  say  nothing  of  its  being  kind)  that 
we  should  suspend  our  judgment  and  say  as  little 
as  possible  where  we  cannot  approve.  If  one  has 
to  pronounce  judgment,  one  would  say:  "I  do  not 
approve  of  such  and  such  a  thing  that  this  man 
does  or  that  he  has  said,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that 
he  has  his  own  reasons  for  the  line  he  is  taking,  and 
it  is  not  for  me  to  condemn  him.  I  do  not  know 


Lent  139 

what  his  difficulties  or  his  temptations  may  be,  and 
in  any  case  it  is  not  my  business  to  judge  him." 

We  have  to  judge  with  a  clearness  like  crystal  with 
regard  to  the  things  which  we  ourselves  do  or  say. 
Truly  there  also  we  have  not  always  all  the  facts 
before  us;  but  we  are  bound  to  decide  and  act 
upon  such  facts  as .  do  come  before  us,  and  it  is 
our  duty  to  choose  what  is  right,  so  far  as  we  can 
see  it.  We  should,  however,  always  remember  with 
humility  that  what  we  think  best  may  not  be  the 
abstract  right  at  all,  and  we  may  well  take  to  heart 
the  advice  given  by  the  celebrated  Dr.  South:  "By 
all  means  follow  thy  conscience;  yet  take  heed  thy 
conscience  is  not  the  conscience  of  a  fool."  We 
must  stand  by  what  we  feel  to  be  right,  yet  we 
must  always  be  willing  to  listen  and  to  learn. 
Above  all,  we  must  try  to  understand  that  other 
people  also  have  consciences,  and  are  trying  to  do 
right,  though  they  may  not  at  all  agree  with  us. 
Hundreds  and  hundreds  of  people  whom  we  may 
have  misjudged  are  just  as  keenly  anxious  to  do 
the  right  thing  as  we  are  ourselves.  It  is  wrong 
that  we  should  make  up  our  minds  about  what  we 
do  not  understand,  and  assign  to  them  some  un- 
worthy motive  when  the  real  truth  is  that  we  know 
nothing  at  all  about  the  matter. 

St.  Peter  is  said  to  have  remarked:  "He  that 
would  fain  see  good  days,  let  him  refrain  his  tongue 
from  evil,  and  his  lips  that  they  speak  no  guile." 
So  it  is  best  to  talk  as  little  as  we  can  about  other 
people  unless  we  have  something  good  to  say.  Watch 
for  what  is  good  and  praise  it — the  reason  for  doing 
so  being  that  when  we  speak  and  think  about  an- 
other person,  the  force  of  our  thought  acts  upon 


140  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  person.  If  a  man  has  done  a  good  thing,  and 
we  think  of  it  as  a  good  thing  and  are  glad  that 
he  did  it,  our  good  thought  plays  upon  him  and 
strengthens  that  virtue,  and  encourages  him  to  afct 
well  again.  If  a  man  has  made  a  mistake  and  we 
think  evil  of  him  for  it,  we  thereby  intensify  that 
evil.  The  evil  thought  from  us  plays  upon  him,  and 
if  he  has  really  made  that  mistake  we  make  him 
more  liable  to  repeat  it.  We  are  acting  the  part 
of  a  tempter  to  that  man,  simply  by  our  thought. 

Those  who  have  not  read  about  these  things  do 
not  know  of  the  immense  mass  of  evidence  of  the 
action  of  thought  upon  the  lives  of  others.  Let 
him  who  doubts  it  study  for  himself.  I  have  spent 
forty  years  in  the  study  of  such  matters,  and  I  can 
tell  you  that  the  force  of  thought  is  a  very  real  and 
powerful  thing;  and  if  you  could  see  how  it  acts 
you  would  be  very  careful  what  you  think  of  others. 

The  beautiful  collect  which  we  use  every  day 
throughout  Lent  is  worthy  of  attention.  l<  Prevent 
us,  0  Lord,  in  all  our  doings  with  Thy  most  gracious 
favour."  I  suppose  that  more  than  half,  probably 
three-fourths  of  the  people  who  hear  those  words 
do  not  know  what  they  mean.  That  word  prevent 
has  come  in  these  later  days  to  have  a  meaning  quite 
different  from  that  which  it  had  at  the  time  of  the 
so-called  Reformation,  when  this  collect  was  trans- 
lated from  the  Latin.  Many  of  us  know  enough 
Latin  to  be  aware  that  venio  means  I  come,  and 
that  pre  is  before.  To  prevent  therefore  is  to  come 
before.  We  can  see  that  a  man  can  come  before 
another  for  various  reasons.  He  could  come  before 
him  to  get  in  his  way  and  to  stop  him  from  doing 
something,  which  is  our  modern  meaning  for  the 


Lent  141 

word  prevent.  We  can  also  see  that  a  man 
might  come  before  another  in  order  to  prepare 
his  way,  to  make  it  easy  for  him.  That  is  the 
mediaeval  signification  of  the  word  prevent,  and 
that  is  what  it  means  in  this  collect  when  we 
say:  " Prevent  us,  0  Lord,  in  all  our  doings. "  Go 
before  us  in  all  our  doings  during  this  season  of 
Lent  with  Thy  most  gracious  favour,  so  that  under 
the  influence  of  that  benign  favour  those  doings 
may  be  what  Thou  wouldst  have  them  to  be — such 
as  may  deserve  the  favour  and  not  such  as  would 
be  shamed  thereby.  That  is  the  meaning  of  those 
words,  and  that  is  precisely  the  idea.  "May  God 
be  with  us  through  all  this  time  of  Lent  so  that 
our  feet  shall  not  stray  from  the  path,  so  that  our 
words  and  our  thoughts  shall  not  offend." 

God  is  indeed  with  us  always,  so  perhaps  we 
may  add  another  shade  of  meaning  and  say:  "May 
we  during  this  period  of  Lent  realize  that  God  is 
with  us  and  so  may  He  (using  for  the  moment  the 
other  sense  of  the  word)  prevent  us  from  evil,  may 
He  igo  before  us  that  no  evil  may  happen  to  us." 
Then  we  add  the  request:  "Further  us  with  Thy 
continual  help."  We  ask  not  only  that  the  thought 
of  Him  shall  go  before  us  all  the  way,  so  that  we 
may  do  no  evil,  but  also  that  we  may  be  furthered, 
pushed  along,  assisted  by  His  continual  help  so  that 
we  may  actively  do  good.  The  first  wish  is  pas- 
sive, that  we  shall  do  no  evil;  the  second  is  positive, 
that  we  must  definitely  try  to  do  good  all  through 
this  season. 

Then  we  give  our  reason:  "May  this  be  done  that 
in  all  our  works,  begun,  continued  and  ended  in 
Thee,  we  may  glorify  Thy  holy  Name."  There  our 


142  The  Christian  Festivals 

collect  ends.  The  Latin  original  goes  a  little  further 
and  adds  yet  another  petition,  "And  finally  by  Thy 
mercy  attain  everlasting  life."  We  omit  that  be- 
cause we  know  it  to  be  unnecessary.  Every  one  of 
us  will  finally  attain  everlasting  life;  every  one  of 
us  will  reach  the  glorious  consummation  which  God 
destines  for  all  humanity.  When  men  speak  of 
Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  proceed  to 
say  that  He  will  save  about  one  person  in  a  million 
(which  is  about  the  ordinary  computation)  they  are 
casting  grave  dishonour  upon  Him.  If  Christ  be 
the  Saviour  of  the  world — and  we  very  fully  admit 
it  (not  that  He  saves  it  from  imaginary  damnation, 
but  that  He  saves  it  from  error  and  ignorance  by 
leading  it  into  all  truth) — then  it  is  of  the  ivhole 
world  and  of  every  creature  in  it.  There  is  none 
that  can  fail,  none  that  can  set  his  will  against 
that  mighty  will  of  God  which  we  call  evolution. 
And  so  we  do  not  need  to  pray  that  "finally  by 
His  mercy  we  may  attain  everlasting  life." 

All  that  comes  to  us  is  by  His  grace  and  by  His 
loving  kindness,  which  is  perhaps  the  true  meaning 
of  that  word  mercy.  We  are  ever  ready  to  acknow- 
ledge that,  but  we  need  not  insult  Him  by  asking 
Him  to  do  that  which  in  His  eternal  counsels  He 
has  already  determined.  Let  us  remember  that  col- 
lect, and  its  reminder  of  the  Presence  of  God  with 
us  all  the  time,  before  and  during  our  action  and 
after  it;  so  that  all  our  works  whatever,  they  are, 
whether  they  are  good  or  bad.  are  begun,  continued 
and  ended  in  Him.  Remembering  that,  we  cannot 
do  works  which  are  not  good  works,  but  shall  un- 
ceasingly endeavour  to  rise  to  the  level  of  this  won- 
drous benefit,  this  eternal  overshadowing  Presence 


Lent  143 

of  the  Deity.  Yet  overshadowing,  though  it  implies 
protection,  seems  hardly  the  right  word  there,  for 
it  is  above  all  things  an  enlightening  Presence 
of  the  glory  of  God  that  shines  upon  every 
action  and  every  thought.  If  we  can  but  re- 
member this  throughout  the  season  of  Lent,  how 
glorious  will  Easter  be  for  us,  how  truly  shall 
we  prepare  ourselves  for  it!  This  great  festival 
will  indeed  be  an  epoch  in  the  life  of  each  one  of 
us  if  we  can  only  carry  out  the  spirit  of  the  Lenten 
Collect  throughout  the  forty  days.  God  is  with  us 
all  the  time;  we  need  only  remember  it;  He  stands 
ever  behind  His  people.  If  that  thought  dwells  in 
our  minds  through  Lent,  Easter  shall  be  for  us  a 
season  of  unimaginable  glory,  happiness  and  spiri- 
tual health. 

The  whole  of  the  services  in  Lent  are  aimed  at 
helping  us  in  the  work  of  curing  our  defects.  The 
very  colour  of  violet  which  the  Church  uses  is  not 
chosen  at  random;  it  is  selected  because  of  the  pierc- 
ing and  purifying  character  of  its  vibrations.  In 
earlier  times  the  whole  of  the  building  was  hung 
with  the  colour  of  the  day,  and  not  only  the  altar 
and  officiants.  It  was  the  idea  that  in  an  atmo- 
sphere permeated  with  violet  light  this  work  of  puri- 
fication would  be  found  somewhat  easier. 

All  these  things  are  scientific  if  we  understand 
them;  but  the  meaning  of  this  ritual  has  been  for- 
gotten, and  it  is  taken  to  be  merely  a  sort  of  ordi- 
nance of  the  Church,  and  few  know  or  care  why  it 
was  ordered.  There  is  a  real  reason  for  it,  and  there 
are  books  on  such  subjects  for  those  who  care  for 
them.  Symbolically  this  period  indicates  the  fourth 
of  the  great  stages  of  man's  development;  for  Lent 


144  The  Christian  Festivals 

is  all  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  right  celebration 
of  that  great  Initiation  at  Easter.  That  is  the  sym- 
bolical meaning  of  it;  but  it  has  a  practical  and 
every-day  application  to  our  lives  as  well. 

THE  SUNDAYS  IN  LENT 

In  the  Collect,  Epistle  and  Gospel  of  the  First 
Sunday  in  Lent,  the  necessity  for  self-examination 
is  emphasized. 

The  writer  of  the  epistle  says,  "Examine  your- 
selves whether  you  be  in  the  faith. M  It  is  one  of  the 
many  misunderstandings  that  have  crept  into  Chris- 
tianity during  the  ages  which  leads  us  to  take 
that  word  "faith"  in  quite  a  wrong  way.  It  has 
degenerated  into  a  purely  mechanical  thing — the 
idea  of  a  faith  in  the  birth  of  Christ  at  a  certain 
time,  faith  that  He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world  and 
that  we  have  only  to  cling  to  those  two  facts  in 
order'  to  come  through  somehow.  That  is  not  in  the 
least  what  was  meant  by  faith  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Church.  Faith  is  certainly  a  strong  belief,  but 
it  is  a  belief  which  has  reason  behind  it.  We  accept 
certain  things  because  they  seem  to  us  to  be  reason- 
able, because  they  seem  to  us  to  be  the  most  probable 
hypothesis  where  we  cannot  have  absolute  certainty. 
But  our  faith  must  be  based  on  reason,  and  it  must 
be  such  a  faith  as  will  lead  us  to  act  according  to 
it.  It  is  no  use  pretending  to  believe  a  thing  when 
all  the  time  we  act  as  though  we  did  not  believe 
it.  Our  faith  in  connection  with  these  higher  mat- 
ters should  be  as  absolutely  definite  a  thing  as  our 
faith  on  the  physical  plane  that  boiling  water  will 
scald  us  or  that  a  red-hot  bar  will  burn  us.  We 
believe  those  things,  and  we  believe  them  strongly 


Lent  145 

enough  to  keep  our  hands  out  of  the  boiling  water 
and  away  from  the  red-hot  bar.  That  is  a  faith 
that  is  worth  something,  but  a  faith  that  is  merely 
up  in  the  air  and  does  not  lead  to  any  results  is  a 
very  poor  thing  indeed;  I  do  not  think  it  is  worth 
calling  a  faith. 

Now  when  the  writer  of  that  epistle  says:  "See 
that  you  are  in  the  faith, "  one  thing  that  he  means 
quite  clearly  is:  "See  that  your  faith  is  the  Chris- 
tian teaching,  and  that  it  is  reasonable  com- 
mon sense. "  There  is  certainly  a  va^t  amount  of 
utter  vagueness  in  religion,  as  well  as  a  great  deal 
of  illusion  and  superstition.  People  have  certain 
beliefs  and  they  cling  to  them  without  any  reason. 
They  may  be  shown  quite  plainly  that  there  is  no 
real  reason  for  this  belief  which  they  hold,  but  they 
cannot  get  over  it;  in  some  way  it  is  ingrained  in 
them  and  there  it  sticks.  Now  most  of  those  super- 
stitions (I  think  I  may  even  say  all  of  them)  are 
derogatory  to  the  glory  and  love  of  God.  The 
appalling  superstition  of  an  everlasting  hell,  for 
example,  has  done  perhaps  more  harm  in  the  world 
than  any  other  single  idea.  It  is  absolutely  base- 
less; it  is  superstition  in  the  very  clearest  definition 
of  the  word.  One  meaning  given  in  the  dictionary 
for  superstition  is  that  it  is  a  false  and  foolish  be- 
lief. If  ever  in  this  world  there  was  a  false  and 
foolish  belief  it  is  this  belief  in  the  existence  of 
hell.  It  comes  largely  from  ignorance,  from  the 
mistranslation  of  certain  words  and  from  miscon- 
ception as  to  what  our  Lord  meant  when  He  made 
certain  statements,  yet  it  still  influences  the  thoughts 
of  millions.  If  there  be  any  of  us  who  have  a 
lingering  fragment  of  that  superstition,  let  them 


146  The  Christian  Festivals 

read  Samuel  Cox's  book,  Salvador  Mundi.  They  may 
take  it  as  absolutely  reliable,  for  the  man  was  a 
good  scholar;  and  then  they  will  see  exactly  what 
the  Christ  did  mean  when  He  spoke  certain  words 
which  have  been  twisted  into  that  horrible  doctrine 
of  hell. 

Religion  has  so  often  been  entirely  up  in  the  air, 
not  only  unpractical,  but  non-physical  and  incom- 
prehensible. People  employ  a  quantity  of  intellec- 
tual counters,  and  they  juggle  with  them  and  set 
one  in  opposition  to  another  and  move  them  about; 
yet  not  one  of  them  has-  a  solid  fact  behind  it.  That 
is  where  we  have  so  often  gone  wrong,  and  that  is 
why  religion  has  lost  its  hold  among  thinking  people, 
because  they  feel  that  the  things  which  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  average  religion  are  not  facts; 
they  have  no  actual  bases.  We  must  keep  our  feet 
on  the  bed-rock  of  fact,  however  far  we  may  carry 
our  speculations  into  the  realm  of  metaphysics.  If 
we  have  not  this  bed-rock  of  fact,  the  whole  thing 
is  baseless  and  hopeless. 

Faith  is  one  of  these  terms  which  are  really  only 
intellectual  counters.  People  talk  about  having 
faith,  and  they  cannot  define  it  with  any  ac- 
curacy or  certainty.  What  they  mean,  if  they 
do  mean  anything,  is  faith  in  the  fact  that 
Christ  died  on  the  cross.  He  did  not  die  on 
the  cross,  for  the  dates  are  wrong,  and  at  the 
time  when  the  body  of  Jesus  was  put  to  death 
the  Romans  had  not  occupied  Jerusalem,  and  so 
the  Roman  punishment  of  crucifixion  was  not  prac- 
tised. The  whole  thing  is  a  beautiful  myth,  a 
Mystery-Drama  which  has  been  degraded  and  twisted 
into  a  physical  life  story,  and  the  people  who  have 


Lent  147 

done  that  have  cramped  themselves  hopelessly,  so 
that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  now  to  get  them  to 
understand  the  higher  and  more  beautiful  meaning. 

Another  intellectual  counter  is  the  word  salvation. 
People  talk  about  that  and  juggle  with  the  idea,  and 
if  one  tries  to  pin  them  down  to  facts  they  generally 
seem  to  mean  salvation  from  a  totally  imaginary 
hell.  There  is  no  foundation  for  the  doctrine  of 
hell,  and  so  there  is  no  need  to  be  saved  from  it. 
The  whole  idea  is  a  most  regrettable  and  disastrous 
misunderstanding.  Some  of  them  say  to  us:  "Have 
you  got  salvation' '?  or  as  they  put  it:  "Are  you 
saved"?  What  is  a  sensible  person  to  answer?  One 
can  only  say,  "In  the  sense  in  which  you  are  using 
the  word  I  do  not  recognize  it  at  all.  It  has  no 
meaning;  but  if  you  say:  'Are  we  saved  from  our 
own  error  and  ignorance?'  I  reply  that  we  are  in 
process  of  being  saved  by  the  knowledge  which  we 
acquire  as  we  draw  nearer  to  the  Christ  in  the 
course  of  our  evolution. "  "Have  you  found 
Jesus?"  shrieks  some  hysterical  enthusiast  in  the 
street.  What  reply  can  be  given?  We  know  prob- 
ably a  great  deal  more  about  our  Lord  Jesus  than 
the  person  who  asks  the  silly  question;  and  he  is 
quite  incapable  of  grasping  the  truth.  Yet  the 
enquiry  is  well  intentioned;  the  poor  thing  really 
does  believe  that  he  is  in  possession  of  some  fact 
that  we  do  not  know,  and  that  our  possession  of  it 
would  secure  our  happiness  hereafter.  It  is  a 
weird  theory,  unthinkable  to  anyone  who  can  think. 
But  there  it  is;  people  use  these  words  iabout 
faith  and  being  saved,  but  they  do  not  attach 
any  defensible  idea  to  them.  Their  idea  is  one 


148  The  Christian  Festivals 

which  can  be  knocked  to  pieces  in  two  minutes  of 
argument. 

Sin  is  another  word  with  which  people  juggle. 
They  talk  about  original  sin;  they  say  that  a  little 
baby  comes  into  the  world  cursed  for  ever  because 
Adam  ate  an  apple  which  Eve  is  said  to  have  handed 
to  him.  No  one  has  ever  tried  to  verify  that  story, 
but  they  make  the  most  appalling  sentence  depend 
upon  it.  The  whole  thing  is  baseless;  when  we 
come  to  look  for  a  foundation  it  is  all  floating  in 
the  air;  it  means  nothing  at  all.  Belief  in  such 
nonsense  is  not  faith;  it  is  absolutely  irrational;  it 
is  mere  stupidity. 

This  idea  of  sin  has  been  erected  into  a  frightful 
bugbear,  a  sort  of  awful  curse  from  which  it  is  only 
with  incredible  difficulty  that  men  can  escape  at  all. 
There  is  no  such  thing  in  this  world.  We  are  all 
evolving,  and  some  of  us,  I  freely  admit,  are  evolv- 
ing slowly;  in  the  process  of  that  slow  evolution  we 
make  mistakes,  we  do  things  we  should  not  do. 
We  may  call  those  mistakes  sin  if  we  like.  It 
is  a  word  I  avoid,  because  it  has  such  horrible 
connotations.  Then  further  we  are  told  that  we 
should  have  the  conviction  of  sin  and  feel  that 
we  are  worms  and  net  men,  all  of  which  is 
really  dishonoiirirug  to  God,  though  it  is  done  in 
the  name  of  religion.  When  we  make  a  bad  mis- 
take and  look  back  and  recognize  it,  we  do  feel 
rather  small,  and  realize  that  we  ought  to  have 
known  a  great  deal  better  than  that.  It  is  quite 
salutary  for  us  to  think  so  for  a  moment  because  it 
may  help  us  not  to  make  the  same  mistake  again, 
but  the  idea  of  erecting  that  mistake  into  a  fright- 
ful nightmare,  by  labelling  it  as  a  deadly  sin  and 


Lent  149 

saying  we  must  be  convicted  of  it,  is  not  only  useless 
but  is  also  hypocrisy.  No  one  who  is  normal  ever 
does  feel  that  he  is  hopelessly  evil;  if  he  does  he 
is  very  much  in  error  and  in  need  of  help  and  en- 
couragement from  someone  who  knows  better.  The 
Christ  is  within  everyone  of  us,  sinners  though  we 
may  be,  and  that  Christ  in  us  is  our  hope  of  glory, 
and  it  is  by  means  of  that,  and  through  that,  that  we 
shall  rise  out  of  this  condition  of  error  which  we 
call  sin  into  a  condition  of  righteousness  where  such 
slips  are  rare. 

People  talk  about  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  and  make 
a  fetish  of  it.  The  theory  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin 
commonly  held  appears  to  be  something  like  wiping 
writing  off  a  slate.  We  have  done  wrong;  we  have 
only  (to  say  we  are  sorry  and  'believe  in  Jesois,  and 
it  is  all  rubbed  out.  I  am  not  going  to  say  that  I 
wish  it  could  be  done  as  easily  as  that;  because,  if 
it  were,  the  laws  of  the  universe  would  be  upset. 
There  is  an  absolute  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  no 
one  can  do  wrong  without  suffering  the  consequences 
of  that  wrong,  without  having  to  atone  for  it  in  the 
sense  of  making  up  for  it  as  far  as  he  can.  The  truth 
underlying  absolution  is  not  that  our  sin  is  for- 
given, but  that  the  distortion  which  is  produced  by 
putting  ourselves  wrong  can  be  straightened  out  and 
put  right  for  us. 

Did  you  ever  think  how  weird  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  as  commonly  held?  The  per- 
son asks  God  to  forgive  him,  and  expects  that  He 
will  do  so.  Suppose  he  did  not  ask  God?  The  sug- 
gestion is  that  He  would  bear  a  grudge  against  the 
man.  Is  that  a  thing  we  have  any  right  to  say 
against  our  loving  Father?  We  should  not  hold  a 


150  The  Christian  Festivals 

grudge  against  a  tiny  child  because  he  did  not  ask 
us  to  forgive  him.  We  could  not  be  so  wicked  as 
that.  We  should  probably  say:  "Poor  little  fellow; 
I  daresay  he  is  sorry  by  this  time,  I  hope  he  will 
not  do  it  again."  And  we  should  try  to  arrange 
things  so  that  he  would  not.  The  idea  of  God  hold- 
ing a  grudge  against  us  and  needing  to  be  asked  to 
forgive  us  is  an  outrage  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
Then  people  talk  about  "the  fear  of  God,"  and 
that  is  a  very  sad  thing.  The  whole  idea  of  the  fear 
of  God  is  a  horror  which  should  be  cast  out.  Have 
we  not  been  told  to  love  God  and  that  God  is  love; 
that  perfect  love  casteth  out  fear?  When  people 
talk  about  a  God-fearing  man  they  are  probably 
thinking  of  various  texts  in  the  bible  in  which  the 
Greek  word  theosebeia  is  translated  fear  of  God.  The 
true  meaning  is  deep  reverence  for  God.  There  is 
a  text:  "The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom."  Substituting  reverence  for  fear,  I 
entirely  agree  with  that;  unless  we  know  some- 
thing of  God,  unless  we  feel  reverence  for  Him 
we  are  far  from  being  wise,  but  to  say  we  should 
fear  the  loving  Father  is  an  outrage;  it  is  a  wrong 
use  of  the  term.  Christ  taught  us  that  God  is  a 
loving  Father;  I  think  we  may  accept  His  statement. 

In  the  same  way  "the  grace  of  God"  is  distorted. 
They  are  nearer  to  facts  there,  but  if  we  try  to  treat 
their  notions  scientifically  people  rise  in  their  wrath 
and  say  that  we  are  blaspheming,  that  we  are 
materializing  the  idea.  The  grace  of  God  is  a  mighty 
spiritual  power  in  the  same  definite  sense  that 
physical  forces  are  powers,  but  it  works  in  finer 
matter.  It  is  a  measurable  force,  a  force  of  which 
more  or  less  can  be  poured  out  upon  us.  It  has  not 


Lent  151 

been  the  fashion  to  be  scientific  about  religion,  but 
it  is  necessary  that  we  should  be  scientific ;  it  is  time 
that  we  examined  ourselves  as  to  our  faith  and 
tried  to  know  what  we  believe  and  why,  and  on 
what  we  base  our  belief.  We  are  called  upon  to 
obey  and  follow  our  Lord  the  Christ,  but  it  is  not 
because  of  any  fear  of  Him  or  of  the  consequences  if 
we  did  not  follow;  it  is  the  love  of  Christ  which 
constraineth  us,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Epistle  for  the 
first  Sunday  in  Lent.  It  is  because  of  our  love  and 
gratitude  to  Him  that  we  must  follow  Him,  that  we 
must  strain  every  nerve  to  make  ourselves  like  Him. 
That  is  our  reason — not  fear  but  love. 

On  the  other  Sundays  in  Lent  we  take  up  some 
of  the  different  mistakes  we  often  make — the  mis- 
take of  evil  thinking  and  evil  speaking,  the  mistake 
of  gossiping,  the  mistake  of  pride.  So  let  us  take 
the  Lenten  idea  to  our  hearts,  let  us  examine  our- 
selves and  put  right  whatever  we  can  find  that  is 
wrong;  so  shall  we  be  able  fully  to  enjoy  and  benefit 
by  that  mighty  outpouring  of  the  Resurrection — so 
shall  we  be  able  to  enjoy  a  happy  Easter  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  old  greeting  for  Easter  Day;  so 
shall  Christ  rise  within  our  hearts  as  well  as  in  the 
outer  world. 

REFRESHMENT  SUNDAY. 

The  Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent  is  usually  called 
Refreshment  Sunday — a  name  which  was  given  to 
it  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  two  reasons.  First,  be- 
cause it  is  the  middle  point  of  Lent — la  mi-careme 
as  they  call  it  in  French — and  therefore  it  was  the 
custom  to  allow  a  certain  amelioration  of  the  rigours 
of  the  fast.  Another  reason  for  the  name  was  the 


The  Christian  Festivals 

gospel  appointed  for  this  day — the  gospel  which  tells 
the  story  of  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  men 
with  five  barley  loaves  and  two  small  fishes.  Whether 
that  story  is  historically  accurate  or  not  does  not 
concern  us  in  the  least.  The  thing  is  not  an  impos- 
sibility; it  has  been  done  in  India  by  professors  of 
quite  another  faith.  It  is  simply  a  question  of 
materialization — of  the  multiplying  of  matter.  It 
may  have  happened  in  Palestine;  whether  it  did  or 
not  I  do  not  know,  nor  is  it  really  of  any  impor- 
tance. At  any  rate,  it  is  a  beautiful  symbol  of  the 
way  in  which  Christ  does  feed  His  people  with  liv- 
ing bread  of  which,  however  little  there  seemp  to  be, 
there  is  yet  enough  for  all. 

The  Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent  is  one  of  the  two 
days  in  the  year  on  which  the  lovely  rose-coloured 
vestments  are  worn,  to  give  us  the  atmosphere  of 
that  tender  and  all-embracing  love  which  must  be 
the  central  quality  underlying  all  our  preparation 
for  the  reception  of  divine  grace.  Many  people  who 
do  not  understand,  who  have  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  study,  or  in  whose  way  it  has  not  come  to  study, 
are  disposed  to  cavil  at  the  arrangement  of  the 
Church,  at  the  vestments  which  its  ministers  wear, 
at  the  sequence  of  its  year  and  of  its  services,  and 
so  on.  They  do  not  realize  that  there  is  a  science  of 
all  these  things,  and  that  every  one  of  them  is  cal- 
culated to  produce  a  definite  effect.  They  should 
not,  however,  make  the  mistake  of  regarding  every- 
one as  of  the  same  disposition  as  themselves.  It 
is  not  without  reason  that  violet  is  used  during 
Lent,  and  white  at  Easter.  As  I  have  already  said, 
it  is  all  part  of  a  scheme;  it  is  a  question  of  rates 
of  vibration,  and  of  the  influence  which  it  is  desired 


Lent  153 

to  radiate.  Some  are  far  more  sensitive  than 
others  to  all  these  things;  there  are  those  who  are 
impatient  of  them,  but  there  are  also  those  upon 
whom  all  these  influences  play  with  effect,  and  so 
they  find  that  the  services  of  the  Church  help  them. 
They  fit  in  wonderfully  with  their  moods,  and  they 
uplift  them.  It  is  exactly  what  they  are  calculated 
to  do. 

In  these  days  of  the  development  of  the  lower 
mind  our  feelings  are  somewhat  in  abeyance.  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  when  people  were  not  developing 
the  lower  mind  in  the  same  way,  their  feelings  were 
much  more  prominent,  and  they  sensed  such  influ- 
ences more.  .Whether  we  individually  feel  these 
things  or  not,  there  are  thousands  who  do,  and  it  is 
ridiculous  that  men  who  do  not  understand  a  particu- 
lar line  should  condemn  others  who  comprehend  it 
and  find  it  helpful.  We  cannot  all  travel  by  the 
same  road;  some  go  one  way  and  some  another,  and 
these  paths  to  God  are  like  so  many  languages  in 
which  we  can  express  the  same  thing  in  various  ways. 
It  may  be  our  way  to  express  ourselves  by  devotion; 
it  may  be  another  man's  way  to  express  the  highest 
and  best  of  himself  by  profound  thought,  by  the 
development  of  wisdom.  Yet  another  may  develop 
himself  best  by  outer  work,  by  activity.  All  these 
are  paths,  and  they  all  lead  to  God.  Why  should  a 
man  who  has  found  one  of  them,  revile  others 
who  are  not  doing  exactly  what  he  is  doing,  but 
are  going  some  other  way?  God  inspires  all  these, 
and  God  receives  them  all  into  Himself,  and  it 
matters  little  by  which  of  the  paths  men  draw  near 
to  Him  so  long  as  they  do  approach  Him. 


154  The  Christian  Festivals 

The  Sundays  towards  the  end  of  the  period  of 
Lent  have  each  a  name  of  their  own.  The  fifth 
Sunday  is  called  Passion  Sunday,  and  there  is  for  it 
a  special  and  beautiful  Roman  Office  Hymn,  Vexilla 
Regis  prodeunt,  "The  Royal  banners  forward  go,  the 
Cross  shines  forth  in  mystic  glow."  For  those  who 
hold  what  the  great  doctor  Origen  called  the  somatic 
view  of  Christianity,  the  celebration  of  Lent  is 
steadily  darkening  towards  its  terrible  close.  The 
week  following  that  fifth  Sunday  is  called  Passion 
Week,  and  then  we  come  to  Palm  Sunday,  which  is 
the  Sunday  next  before  Easter,  and  after  that  conies 
the  Holy  Week  in  which  occur  Maundy  Thursday 
and  Good  Friday. 

HOLY  WEEK 

In  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  lay  no  obliga- 
tion whatever  upon  any  member  of  the  congregation 
in  the  matter  of  belief;  all  are  perfectly  free  to 
take  any  of  the  old  stories  just  as  they  choose — 
literally  or  symbolically;  that  does  not  matter  in  the 
least  to  us,  the  clergy,  though  we  have  quite  definite 
opinions  of  our  own.  People  attend  church  to  be 
helped,  and  we  try  through  the  sacraments  which 
the  Christ  has  ordained  to  give  the  help  required. 
What  they  believe  is  their  affair  and  not  ours,  and 
that  is  the  only  basis  of  perfect  freedom  of  thought, 
That  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  gives  to  all  her 
members  without  stint  and  without  question. 

Our  Christian  brothers  in  other  branches  of  the 
Church  make  this  period  of  the  Passion  and  the 
Resurrection  the  commemoration  of  terrible  physical 
sufferings;  and  they  read  the  detailed  story  of  those 
sufferings  of  the  Christ,  dwelling  upon  their  grue- 


Holy  Week  155 

some  details  in  order  to  rouse  in  their  people  feel- 
ings of  pity,  devotion  and  gratitude  to  the 
Christ  Who  bore  so  much  for  them.  We  know 
through  clairvoyant  investigation  that  these  events 
are  not  historical,  and  that  therefore  all  through 
the  ages  a  vast  amount  of  the  deepest  sympathy  and 
pity  has  been  lavished  upon  a  dream — upon  some- 
thing that,  as  it  is  generally  understood,  did  not 
happen  at  all,  for  the  body  of  the  disciple  Jesus 
was  killed  by  stoning,  and  not  by  crucifixion. 
Whether  on  the  whole  that  story  has  done  more 
harm  than  good,  it  is  not  so  easy  for  us  to  say.  I 
cannot  but  feel  it  to  have  been  responsible  for  a 
vast  amount  of  harm;  but  on  the  other  hand  I  see 
that  the  legend  was  in  its  way  a  noble  legend,  and 
that  many  may  have  been  helped  and  benefited 
thereby. 

Yet  surely  the  truth  is  nobler  and  far  more 
beautiful,  for  all  of  this  is  a  splendid  piece  of 
allegory.  The  suffering,  the  cross,  the  passion,  the 
death,  the  burial,  the  resurrection — all  of  these  are 
symbols  of  what  happens  at  the  fourth  of  the  great 
Initiations,  that  of  the  Arhat.  I  do  not  in  the  least 
deny,  I  do  not  wish  for  a  moment  to  minimize,  the 
suffering  and  the  crucifixion  that  come  as  part  of 
that  great  step;  not  physical  suffering  truly,  but 
none  the  less  real  and  terrible.  But  when  we  under- 
stand what  it  means  we  shall  regard  that  suf- 
fering from  a  very  different  point  of  view.  It  is 
true  enough,  it  is  terrible  enough,  and  it  will  come 
to  every  one  of  us  just  as  it  came  in  His  time  to  the 
Christ  Himself.  Remember  what  our  hymn  tells 
US: 

And    on    the    Holy    Cross     Christ  hangcth  but  in 
Unless  within  our  hearts  it  be  set  up  again. 


156  The  Christian  Festivals 

But  surely  we  should  look  at  that  just  as  our  sol- 
diers looked  at  the  ghastliness  of  the  great  war.  It 
would  be  difficult  for  us  to  exaggerate,  or  even  to 
imagine,  the  horrors  through  which  men  had  to  go 
there  on  the  battle-front;  yet  they  did  not  emphasize 
those  horrors;  they  took  them  as  coming  in  the  day's 
work,  as  part  of  a  terrible  duty  that  had  to  be  done. 
They  thought  always  of  the  end  for  which  they  were 
fighting — the  deliverance  of  the  world  from  the  in- 
carnated hosts  of  evil,  the  peace,  the  happiness,  the 
freedom  which  were  to  be  gained  by  that  fight.  So 
when  we  look  forward  (as  well  we  may,  as  indeed  we 
are  intended  to  do)  through  this  period  of  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Passion  to  the  great  Initiation  through 
which  one  day  we  shall  have  to  pass  like  all  others, 
while  we  know  of  the  suffering,  surely  we  too  shall 
count  it  as  joy  in  view  of  the  glory  and  splendour 
and  power  which  it  will  bring  us,  the  power  to  help, 
the  strength  to  forward  evolution.  It  is  for  the  sake 
of  that  that  we  dare  it,  that  we  meet  it.  It  is  not 
for  us  to  whine  over  the  personal  sufferings  or  to 
exaggerate  the  horrors,  but  rather  to  look  at  it  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  good  of  the  world. 

Surely  in  that  way  we  shall  gain  more  from  the 
contemplation  of  the  thought  of  the  Passion  and 
the  Crucifixion.  Not  that  they  are  one  whit  less 
real  to  us  when  we  take  the  spiritual  interpretation, 
for  we  know  that  whether  in  that  incarnation  of  the 
Christ  the  death  and  the  resurrection  took  place 
literally  in  Palestine  or  not,  they  do  take  place  in 
the  life  of  every  Christian  man,  and  it  is  that  which 
concerns  us — not  the  particular  happening  in  time, 
but  the  perpetual  passing  of  developed  humanity 
through  these  different  stages.  These  things  are 


Holy  Week  157 

facts;  they  do  occur  in  human  evolution,  ordained 
by  the  unsearchable  wisdom  of  God ;  so  it  is  well  that 
we  should  dwell  upon  them  not  from  the  point  of 
view  of  horror  and  suffering,  but  as  remembering  the 
glory  that  lies  behind  and  the  inner  meaning  of  it  all. 

I  remember  being  taught  as  a  child  what  was  be- 
lieved to  be  the  sequence  of  events  commemorated 
in  that  Holy  Week  which  is  the  culmination  and 
conclusion  of  Lent.  It  was  explained  that  the  popu- 
lar excitement  and  acclamation  of  Palm  Sunday  was 
the  direct  and  immediate  result  of  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  on  the  previous  day.  It  seemed  to  me  (and 
still  seems)  that  the  exigencies  of  the  story  require 
a  somewhat  longer  interval  between  those  two  events; 
but  perhaps  that  is  only  another  instance  of  the 
characteristic  which  is  so  prominent  in  the  Mystery- 
Drama  of  the  gospels — that  the  whole  presentation  is 
not  that  of  a  continuous  narrative,  but  of  a  number 
of  separate  scenes  intended  to  be  acted.  At  any 
rate  those  of  us  who  know  anything  of  the  nature 
of  oriental  races  can  readily  understand  the  com- 
motion and  the  enthusiasm  which  would  be  aroused 
by  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus ;  we  can  imagine  how 
people  from  the  neighbouring  villages  would 
eagerly  crowd  into  Bethany  and  wait  about  for  the 
chance  of  seeing  Jesus  or  Lazarus. 

Just  so  they  were  all  waiting  to  see  Him  on  that 
Sunday  morning  when  He  started  to  go  into  the 
town,  and  the  moment  He  appeared  they  all  began  to 
cheer.  They  crowded  round  Him,  they  made  a  sort 
of  rough  procession  to  escort  Him;  they  tore  great 
palm-leaves  from  the  trees  and  waved  them  before 
Him ;  and  as  soon  as  the  idea  occurred  to  them  that 
He  was  a  great  saint,  a  great  prophet,  they  took  off 


158  The  Christian  Festivals 

their  outer  garments  and  threw  them  down  in  His 
path — not  only  to  do  honour  to  Him,  but  to  have 
the  garments  blessed  by  the  touch  of  the  feet  of  the 
Great  One,  or  even  the  feet  of  the  ass  upon  which 
He  rode.  To  us  this  seems  a  strange,  exaggerated 
action,  but  it  is  quite  natural  to  an  oriental.  Of 
course  we  must  not  think  of  our  ugly  modern  cloth- 
ing, but  of  the  loose  flowing  robes  of  the  East — the 
shawl-like  outer  cloth  which  is  thrown  round  the 
shoulders.  I  have  seen  the  very '  same  thing  done 
before  a  Muhammadan  saint  who  had  the  reputation 
of  being  unusually  holy;  and  on  at  least  two  occa- 
sions the  same  quaint  honour  has  been  paid  to  me 
when  I  delivered  some  lecture  which  specially  ap- 
pealed to  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  an  Eastern 
audience. 

So  Jesus  rode  on  His  way,  the  centre  of  a  noisy, 
gesticulating  crowd.  Naturally  people  came  run- 
ning from  all  sides,  asking  what  was  happening;  and 
when  they  were  told:  "This  is  Jesus,  the  prophet  of 
Nazareth,  Who  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead/'  they 
joined  the  procession,  and  shouted  with  the  rest. 
The  Jews  had  always  the  reputation  of  being 
a  turbulent  and  riotous  people,  and  when  their 
authorities  saw  this  huge,  excited  crowd  approach- 
ing the  city  they  became  alarmed  and  ordered 
out  their  soldiers,  fearing  the  beginning  of  a 
revolution.  And  even  when  they  were  .reassured 
for  the  moment,  their  minds  were  still  disturbed, 
and  they  consulted  together  as  to  what  should 
be  done  with  Jesus.  They  felt  that  He  was 
becoming  altogether  too  popular,  that  He  had 
far  too  great  an  influence  with  the  people — an  in- 
fluence which  might  easily  be  used  (and  indeed  had 


Holu  Week  159 

to  some  extent  already  been  used)  in  opposition  to 
theirs,  so  that  they  feared  the  overthrow  of  their 
authority.  They  felt,  too,  that  any  one  who  upset 
the  decent  conventions  of  ordinary  life  by  such  a 
revolutionary  innovation  as  raising  a  dead  man  to 
life  was  a  dangerous  person,  who  needed  instant  re- 
pression lest  He  should  still  further  disturb  the 
calm  current  of  respectability  which  had  floated 
them  into  positions  of  wealth  and  power.  So  they 
plotted  for  His  removal  by  the  simple  process  of 
judicial  murder. 

His  disorderly  but  enthusiastic  little  procession 
reached  the  city,  and  He  wended  His  way  to  the 
synagogue  and  began  to  talk  to  the  people,  as  was 
His  wont.  He  seems  to  have  spent  much  time  in 
this  way  during  Monday  and  Tuesday ;  in  fact,  nearly 
half  of  His  recorded  utterances  are  said  to  have  been 
delivered  on  those  two  days.  He  was  something  of 
a  popular  hero,  not  only  through  what  He  had  done 
in  the  matter  of  Lazarus,  but  because  of  His  fear- 
less and  scathing  denunciations  of  the  party  in 
power;  so  the  authorities  were  afraid  to  effect  His 
arrest  openly,  lest  they  should  provoke  a  rescue  by 
the  mob.  They  seem  to  have  felt  it  necessary  to 
act  quickly,  as  huge  •  crowds  of  excitable  and  per- 
fervid  pilgrims  were  daily  pouring  into  the  city  in 
preparation  for  the  great  annual  feast  of  the  Pass- 
over; so  they  allowed  it  to  be  understood  that  they 
were  willing  to  pay  a  good  price  to  anybody  who 
would  arrange  a  convenient  opportunity  for  His 
secret  and  expeditious  capture.  This  aroused  the 
cupidity  of  Judas  Iscariot,  who  was  the  treasurer 
of  the  tiny  peripatetic  community,  and  he  earned 
for  himself  the  contempt  and  loathing  of  countless 


160  The  Christian  Festivals 

millions  by  offering  to  betray  his  Master  into  the 
hands  of  that  unsavoury  administration.  This  piece 
of  rascality  was  concocted  on  the  Wednesday,  and 
we  used  to  be  told  that  it  was  because  of  the  shame 
brought  on  humanity  by  that  atrocious  action  that 
the  Church  of  England  orders  its  lugubrious  litany 
to  be  recited  on  that  day  each  week — on  Wednesday 
in  horror  of  the  betrayal  of  the  Christ,  and  on  Fri- 
day because  of  His  death.  Why  that  most  dreary  of 
lucubrations  should  also  be  assigned  to  Sunday  was 
not  explained,  unless  on  the  theory  that  it  was  only 
on  that  day  that  a  sufficient  number  of  people  could 
be  depressed  by  its  weird  jumble  of  servility  and 
gloom. 

Thursday  is  always  regarded  and  celebrated  as  the 
day  of  the  institution  of  the  Holy  Eucharist, 
although  many  students  consider  that,  when  one 
takes  into  account  the  various  happenings  mentioned 
in  the  story,  it  must  have  been  after  midnight  when 
that  institution  took  place,  and  so  really  Good  Friday 
morning.  Certainly  according  to  Jewish  calculations 
it  must  have  been  Friday,  for  the  Hebrew  reckoned 
his  days  from  sunset  to  sunset.  I  have  explained  in 
a  previous  volume  of  this  series  (The  Science  of  the 
Sacraments)  that  the  marvellous  change  which  is 
produced  in  the  sacred  Elements  by  the  act  of  con- 
secration can  be  achieved  only  between  the  hours  of 
midnight  and  noon — a  fact  which  tells  in  favour 
of  the  ancient  tradition  which  places  the  institution 
after  midnight.  However  that  may  be,  Thursday  is 
commonly  associated  with  the  Holy  Sacrament,  so 
that  if  a  church  has  only  one  week-night  service,  it 
is  usually  on  that  day. 


Holy  Week  161 

The  name  Maundy  Thursday  is  a  corruption 
of  the  Latin  mandatum,  which  is  the  first  word  of 
the  special  antiphon  of  the  day.  It  means  "com- 
mandment" and  refers  not  only  to  the  new  com- 
mandment "that  we  love  one  another,"  but  also  to 
the  order  first  given  on  that  day  two  thousand  years 
ago:  "Do  this  is  remembrance  of  Me." 

According  to  the  gospel  story  many  events  are 
crowded  into  that  fateful  night  between  the  Thurs- 
day and  the  Friday — the  visit  to  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane,  the  actual  betrayal  (what  was  com- 
memorated on  Wednesday  was  the  plot  for  the 
betrayal)  the  arraignment  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
before  Pilate  and  before  Herod,  and  the  final  con- 
demnation. Of  course  as  an  attempt  at  a  history  of 
actual  happenings  it  is  manifestly  impossible,  but 
we  must  never  forget  that  the  writers  had  no  such 
intention  in  their  minds,  and  would  probably  have 
stood  aghast  if  they  could  have  foreseen  the  astound- 
ing yet  almost  universal  misinterpretation  which 
awaited  their  literary  efforts.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  any  touch  of  prevision  came  to  them,  they  would 
confidently  rely  on  this  obvious  impossibility  to  pre- 
vent so  strange  a  mistake.  If  these  stories  had  not 
from  the  days  of  our  childhood  been  surrounded  for 
us  by  a  kind  of  glamour  of  sacrosanctity,  we  should 
never  have  taken  them  for  history;  and  when  once 
the  idea  that  they  are  the  scenes  of  a  religious  Mys- 
tery-Drama is  fully  understood,  it  explains  every- 
thing so  clearly  that  one  cannot  doubt  its  truth. 

The  evangelists  disagree  somewhat  as  to  exact 
hours,  as  well  they  may;  but  their  story  is  that 
Jesus  died  some  time  on  Friday,  and  that  His  body 
was  buried  that  same  evening  in  a  rock  tomb  by 


162  The  Christian  Festivals 

Joseph  of  Arimathea.  It  lay  there  all  through 
Saturday,  but  was  raised  therefrom  very  early  on 
the  Sunday  morning — directly  after  midnight,  ac- 
cording to  one  tradition  of  the  Church.  This  gives 
the  body  about  thirty  hours  in  the  tomb,  thus  just 
satisfying  the  requirements  of  the  statement  that 
"on  the  third  day  He  rose  from  the  dead,"  but  by 
no  means  fulfilling  the  prophecy  that  the  Son  of 
Man  should  be  for  three  days  and  three  nights  in 
the  heart  of  the  earth.  Other  traditions  extend  the 
time  in  the  grave  to  forty  hours,  as  has  already  been 
said. 

"  Which  things  are  an  allegory, "  and  a  remark- 
ably accurate  allegory.  I  have  explained  that  the 
whole  drama  is  intended  to  put  before  us  a  vivid 
presentation  of  the  progress  of  the  Initiate,  and 
that  its  stages  indicate  the  great  Initiations  which 
are,  as  it  were,  milestones  on  that  mighty  journey 
of  the  human  soul.  The  events  attributed  to  the 
Holy  Week  and  to  Easter  symbolize  the  fourth  of 
these  steps,  and  indeed  closely  follow  its  essential 
characteristics.  Those  who  have  passed  through  that 
trial  are  bound  by  vows  of  secrecy  as  to  detail,  just 
as  is  a  Masonic  neophyte;  but  they  violate  no  pledge 
when  they  tell  us  that  this  gospel  story  follows  its 
broad  outline  with  considerable  fidelity.  The  can- 
didate seems  always  to  meet  with  a  certain  amount 
of  earthly  triumph  and  recognition,  and  he  takes 
advantage  of  that  to  do  what  he  can  in  the  way  of 
teaching  and  helping  others,  that  being  the  duty 
laid  upon  him.  His  endeavours  stir  up  envy,  hatred 
and  violent  opposition,  and  among  those  who  have 
received  help  from  him  there  is  always  found  one 
who  will  turn  upon  him  with  treachery,  bear  false 


Holy  Week  163 

witness  against  him,  traduce  his  fair  fame  and  mis- 
represent his  actions.  Shame  and  obloquy  of  all 
sorts  are  heaped  upon  him,  and  though  modern  laws 
do  not  permit  physical  crucifixion,  the  amazing  spite 
and  bitter  vindictiveness  of  his  persecutors  show  how 
gladly  they  would  revive  the  fires  of  Smithfield  if 
their  furious  malignity  were  not  restrained  by  the 
advance  of  civilization. 

Kuysbroek,  the  Flemish  mystic  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  writes  of  such  candidates:  "Sometimes 
these  unhappy  ones  are  deprived  of  the  good  things 
of  earth,  of  their  friends  and  relations,  and  are 
deserted  by  all  creatures;  their  holiness  is  mistrusted 
and  despised,  men  put  a  bad  construction  upon  all 
the  works  of  their  life,  and  they  are  rejected  and 
disdained  by  all  those  who  surround  them;  and 
sometimes  they  are  afflicted  by  divers  diseases." 
And  another  great  mystic,  Madame  Blavatsky,  writes 
even  more  forcibly  and  truly:  "Where  do  we  find 
in  history  that  messenger,  grand  or  humble,  Initiate 
or  neophyte,  who,  when  he  was  made  the  bearer  of 
some  hitherto  concealed  truth,  was  not  crucified  and 
rent  to  shreds  by  the  dogs  of  envy,  malice  and 
ignorance?  Such  is  the  terrible  occult  law;  and  he 
who  does  not  feel  in  himself  the  heart  of  a  lion  to 
scorn  the  savage  barking,  and  the  soul  of  a  dove  to 
forgive  the  poor  ignorant  fools,  let  him  give  up  the 
Sacred  Science. "  (The  Secret  Doctrine,  iii,  90.) 

"When  the  outburst  of  insanity  has  culminated, 
there  comes  a  period  of  peace  and  obscurity,  and 
then  (if  the  candidate  has  borne  the  trial  satisfac- 
torily) he  attains  the  step  for  which  he  has  so  long 
been  striving,  and  the  success  which  crowns  his 
efforts  is  so  much  greater  than  he  has  ever  dreamed, 


164  &he  Christian  Festivals 

that  it  is  indeed  a  resurrection  into  a  nobler  life  and 
a  higher  world.  But  the  poor  ignorant  persecutors 
never  know  that. 

The  compilers  of  the  gospels  evidently  knew  the 
Egyptian  form  of  the  fourth  Initiation,  for  many 
of  its  details  emerge  in  their  presentation  of  it.  The 
introduction  of  the  cross  itself  is  part  of  the  Egyp- 
tian symbolism,  for  it  was  never  a  Jewish  method  of 
execution,  and  at  the  real  date  of  the  death  of  the 
body  of  Jesus  the  Romans  had  not  yet  annexed 
Palestine.  The  "preaching  to  the  spirits  in  prison" 
on  Saturday  also  points  to  the  plan  adopted  on  the 
banks  of  the  Nile;  but  all  this  belongs  rather  to  the 
doctrinal  explanation  which  I  hope  to  give  in  a 
later  volume  of  this  series. 

THE  SERVICES  IN  HOLY  WEEK 

Owing  to  the  lamentable  materialization  of  the 
sublime  allegory  into  physical  history,  the  Church 
services  for  Holy  Week  early  took  on  a  gloomy  tinge, 
and  presently  became  so  dismal  and  depressing  that 
the  name  " Divine  Service"  could  no  longer  in  any 
sense  be  applied  to  them.  The  Roman  ceremonies 
are  very  complicated  and  elaborate,  and  show  distinct 
traces  of  the  pre-Christian  worship  of  the  Sun-God. 
The  Church  of  England  has  carefully  eliminated  all 
the  picturesqueness  of  the  traditional  rites,  and  left 
us  nothing  but  a  series  of  long  and  inexpressibly 
wearisome  readings.  Some  of  her  more  ritualistic 
churches,  however,  have  ventured  to  go  a  little 
beyond  the  dreary  prescriptions  of  her  prayer-book 
and  have  introduced  the  old  office  of  Tenebrae. 
They  have  also  invented  a  new  liturgical  item  to 
commemorate  the  three  hours  from  twelve  to  three 


Holy  Week  165 

on  Good  Friday  during  which  Jesus  is  supposed  to 
have  hung  upon  the  cross.  This  usually  consists  of 
the  recitation  of  the  seven  Words  or  sayings  to 
which  He  is  represented  to  have  given  utterance  at 
that  time,  each  being  followed  by  a  short  address 
and  the  singing  of  a  litany. 

Palm  Sunday 

In  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  have  perpetu- 
ated such  of  the  ancient  ceremonies  as  we  can  con- 
scientiously use,  while  omitting  those  which  lack 
any  rational  meaning  or  historical  justification.  The 
temporary  triumph  of  Palm  Sunday  was  an  actual 
occurrence  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  also  represents 
a  definite  fact  in  the  experience  of  every  Initiate, 
so  we  follow  the  traditional  rites  for  that  day,  be- 
ginning our  chief  service  with  the  Blessing  of  the 
Palms.  Leaves  or  branches  of  the  date  palm  (or  if 
it  is  unobtainable,  of  some  other  plant  resembling  it 
as  closely  as  possible)  in  sufficient  number  to  provide 
one  for  each  member  of  the  congregation,  are  laid 
upon  a  side  table  in  the  chancel  and  covered  with  a 
white  or  purple  veil.  The  procession  enters  the 
church  as  usual,  and  when  the  chancel  is  reached 
the  palm-branches  are  uncovered,  and  blessed  by  the 
priest,  who  sprinkles  them  with  holy  water  and 
censes  them.  They  are  then  distributed  to  the  clergy, 
choir  and  people,  and  a  branch  is  tied  with  violet 
ribbon  to  the  top  of  the  processional  cross.  Where 
congregations  are  large  and  palm-branches  difficult 
to  obtain,  it  has  sometimes  been  the  custom  to  make 
small  crosses  out  of  the  leaflets  of  the  palm,  and 
distribute  those  among  the  people. 


166  &he  Christian  Festivals 

The  procession  is  now  formed  in  the  chancel,  and 
moves  down  the  nave  and  out  at  the  west  door,  every 
member  of  it  carrying  his  palm.  The  hymn  sung  at 
this  point  is  usually  "Hosanna!  loud  hosannas  the 
little  children  sang.''  When  the  procession  has 
passed  out  into  the  porch  the  church-door  is  closed, 
two  cantors  being  usually  left  inside  to  direct  the 
singing  of  the  congregation.  The  people  within  now 
turn  to  the  west  and  sing  the  opening  verse  of  the 
traditional  Palm  Sunday  hymn,  "All  glory,  laud  and 
honour,"  which  was  composed  for  this  service  in  the 
year  810  by  Theodulf,  Bishop  of  Orleans.  This 
verse  is  repeated  by  those  outside  the  door.  The 
two  cantors  and  the  congregation  then  sing  the  next 
verse,  "Thou  art  the  King  of  Israel,"  and  wait 
while  the  refrain  (which  is  the  same  as  the  first 
verse)  is  sung  by  those  without.  The  hymn  is  con- 
tinued in  the  same  way,  each  of  the  verses  being 
sung  inside  the  church,  while  the  refrain  always 
replies  from  outside;  but  in  the  refrain  after  the 
last  verse  all  join.  When  that  is  finished  the  cru- 
cifer  knocks  at  the  door  with  the  lower  end  of  the 
staff  of  the  processional  cross;  it  is  immediately 
opened  by  the  cantors,  and  the  procession  enters  with 
its- palms,  singing  some  appropriate  hymn.  The  Holy 
Eucharist  then  begins  and  proceeds  as  usual.  The 
people  carry  home  their  branches  or  crosses  of  palm, 
and  preserve  them  until  the  following  year. 

A  curious  little  mistake  is  sometimes  made  in  this 
quaint  old  ritual  in  the  Roman  Church,  the  cross- 
bearer  kicking  at  the  door  instead  of  knocking  with 
the  staff  of  the  processional  cross.  This  arose  from 
a  mistranslation  by  Dale  of  the  directions  given  in 
the  monumental  work  of  Baldesehi,  col  suo  piede 


Holy  Week  167 

being   interpreted   as   referring   to   the  foot   of  the 
man  instead  of  the  foot  of  the  cross. 

There  are  no  especial  ceremonies  on  Monday, 
Tuesday  and  Wednesday  of  Holy  Week.  The 
Roman  Church  recites  the  office  called  Tenebrae 
on  Wednesday  night — and  indeed  on  the  nights  of 
Thursday  and  Friday  as  well.  The  chief  feature  of 
this  service  (from  which  its  name  is  taken)  is  that 
during  its  performance  all  the  lights  in  the  church 
are  gradually  extinguished  until  only  one  candle  is 
left,  which  is  then  hidden  behind  the  altar.  In  the 
darkness  a  great  crash  is  made  to  signify  the  over- 
throw of  nature  at  the  death  of  its  Great  Architect, 
then  the  lighted  candle  is  produced  and  shown  again 
for  a  moment,  and  the  congregation  all  rise  and 
depart  in  silence.  A  weird  service,  and  not  particu- 
larly useful,  so  far  as  we  can  see;  therefore  we  have 
omitted  it. 

Maundy  Thursday 

For  the  same  reason  we  do  not  perpetuate  the 
ceremony  of  the  washing  of  the  feet  of  thirteen  poor 
men  on  Maundy  Thursday.  Among  us  that  day  is 
kept  as  one  of  festal  splendour  in  honour  of  the 
institution  of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  and  at  the  High 
Celebration  we  carry  the  Blessed  Sacrament  round 
the  church  in  procession,  just  as  at  Benediction. 
Three  additional  large  Hosts  are  consecrated  at  this 
celebration  and  reserved  for  subsequent  use.  In  the 
evening  a  eiborium  containing  these  three  Hosts  is 
carried  out  in  solemn  procession.  These  Hosts,  to- 
gether with  some  particles  for  the  possible  need  of 
the  sick,  should  be  reserved  in  a  tabernacle  in  the 
sacristy  or  some  other  convenient  place  out  of  the 
church.  Two  of  these  Hosts  are  required  lor  the 


168  The  Christian  Festivals 

Eucharist  of  the  Presanctified  on  Good  Friday  and 
Holy  Saturday  respectively,  and  the  third  is  to  be 
placed  in  the  tabernacle  on  the  high  altar  before 
the  first  Celebration  on  Easter  Day,  or  on  the  Satur- 
day evening  if  the  first  Vespers  of  Easter  and 
Benediction  be  celebrated. 

After  the  evening  service  on  Maundy  Thursday 
the  altar  is  stripped  of  flowers,  cloths  and  frontal, 
the  tabernacle  is  left  open  and  empty,  and  the  altar 
cross  is  again  veiled  in  violet — as  indeed  it  has  been 
all  through  the  Holy  Week,  except  that  the  veil 
was  changed  to  white  for  Maundy  Thursday.  On 
that  day  the  bishop  in  his  cathedral  consecrates  the 
holy  oils  to  be  used  during  the  succeeding  year. 

Good  Friday 

On  Good  Friday  the  altar  is  covered  with  a  plain 
linen  cloth  and  violet  frontal,  but  otherwise  is  un- 
adorned. No  candles  are  lighted.  The  service 
begins  with  the  Asperges  in  either  the  long  or  short 
form  (but  omitting  the  collect  for  the  Angel).  The 
Collects,  Epistle  and  Gospel  follow  on  immediately. 
After  the  Gospel  follows  the  sermon  if  there  is  one; 
and  immediately  after  that  follows  the  ancient  ser- 
vice of  reverence  to  the  cross.  The  altar  cross  is 
placed  in  the  centre  of  the  altar  and  unveiled;  and 
as  the  veil  is  taken  off  the  people  kneel.  The  officiant 
and  any  other  clergy  and  acolytes  approach  the 
altar  from  the  further  end  of  the  chancel  by  three 
stages,  and  at  the  end  of  each  stage  they  all  genu- 
flect simultaneously.  At  the  first  genuflection  the 
priest  chants  the  words,  "Holy  art  Thou,  0  God/' 
which  are  repeated  by  the  congregation.  At  the 
second  genuflection  he  chants,  "Holy  art  Thou,  0 


Holy   Week  169 

Mighty  One,"  and  again  the  people  repeat  what  he 
says.  At  the  third  genuflection  the  words  are, 
"Holy  art  Thou,  0  Immortal  One;  pour  out  Thy 
love  upon  us."  And  again  the  people  reply  in  the 
same  words.  This  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the 
ceremonies,  and  as  it  is  performed  even  to-day  in 
the  Roman  Church  the  old  form  is  preserved;  for 
the  priest  speaks  his  sentences  in  Greek,  while  the 
congregation  answer  him  in  Latin.  Considering, 
however,  the  impossibility  of  getting  the  average  man 
of  to-day  to  pronounce  these  words  correctly,  we 
have  thought  it  desirable  to  translate  the  versicles 
into  English. 

After  this  the  hymn  "Take  up  thy  cross"  is 
sung,  and  towards  the  end  of  it  the  candles  are 
lighted  on  the  altar  and  the  cross  is  moved  back  to 
its  accustomed  place.  A  procession  is  now  formed 
which  goes  out  to  fetch  the  Host,  and  returns  to  the 
high  altar  with  lights  and  incense,  the  celebrant 
bearing  the  Host  in  a  ciborium.  The  Host  is  placed 
on  the  corporal,  and  wine  and  water  are  poured 
into  the  chalice,  but  without  the  usual  prayers.  The 
priest  censes  the  offerings  on  the  altar  in  the  usual 
way  and  resumes  the  Eucharist  at  the  Orate  Fratres, 
using  only  two  short  prayers;  he  then  elevates  the 
Host,  breaks  it  over  the  chalice,  and  drops  in  a 
particle  as  usual,  but  in  silence.  He  then  recites 
the  prayer  "0  Thou  Who  in  this  adorable  Sacra- 
ment," and  himself  communicates  as  usual.  Imme- 
diately after  this  he  concludes  the  service  with  the 
Post-Communio  prayer,  and  the  altar  cloth  is  then 
removed. 

This  curiously  shortened  form  is  called  in  the 
Roman  Church  the  Mass  of  the  Presanctified.  It  is 


170  The  Christian  Festivals 

used  in  that  Church  and  in  ours  on  Good  Friday  and 
Holy  Saturday  only,  but  in  the  Eastern  Church  a 
similar  form  is  enjoined  for  all  the  days  in  Lent 
except  Saturdays  and  Sundays.  The  traditional 
offices  of  Good  Friday  and  Holy  Saturday  are  pro- 
tracted by  the  reading  of  long  passages  from  the 
Old  Testament;  but  the  whole  of  that  is  omitted 
in  our  services.  Our  attitude  towards  the  events 
which  these  days  are  supposed  to  commemorate  is 
so  different  from  that  of  the  other  Churches  that 
the  form  of  service  which  they  prescribe  is  entirely 
unsuited  for  us.  Good  Friday,  however,  offers  an 
excellent  opportunity  for  the  priest  to  explain  to 
his  people  whatever  he  knows  with  regard  to  the 
great  Initiation  which  the  Church  here  symbolizes 
for  us.  This  is  in  one  way  the  last  of  the  purely 
human  Initiations.  There  follows  yet  one,  the  Fifth 
— that  of  the  Asekha,  which  means  "The  man  who 
has  no  more  to  learn"  (that  is.  with  regard  to  our 
planetary  chain) — and  that  is  symbolized  in 
the  Christian  system  by  the  Ascension  and  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  Whitsunday.  But 
that  Initiation  takes  the  man  out  of  humanity  and 
makes  him  a  superman,  so  it  may  be  said  that  that 
which  we  are  now  celebrating — the  Arhat — is  the 
last  of  the  purely  human  Initiations. 

The  question  is  often  asked  why  there  should  be 
so  much  trouble  and  suffering  associated  with  it.  It 
is  part  of  our  teaching  that  no  suffering  can  ever 
come  to  any  man  unless  he  has  deserved  it — that 
there  is  a  mighty  law  of  cause  and  effect  in  obedience 
to  which  comes  suffering  or  joy.  as  the  case  may  be. 
Therefore  the  man  who  is  about  to  wind  up  his 
affairs  as  a  human  being,  and  pass  into  an  altogether 


Holy  Week  171 

higher  state,  must  clear  off  before  he  goes  any 
arrears  of  karma,  as  they  call  it  in  India — any  debt 
outstanding  as  the  result  of  his  actions.  A  certain 
amount  of  that  result  remains  until  the  very  end 
of  his  human  career,  and  then  it  comes  upon  him  at 
this  time — the  time  at  which  he  is  taking  that  final 
step.  We  are  all  generating  causes  all  the  while — 
every  day,  every  moment,  by  our  thoughts,  our 
words,  our  actions,  we  are  setting  something  in 
motion.  Inevitably  it  all  reacts  upon  us,  whether  it 
be  good  or  whether  it  be  evil.  The  man  who  has 
reached  the  level  of  that  higher  Initiation  is  little 
likely  to  be  making  much  evil  karma,  because  al- 
ready he  stands  far  above  the  average  in  spiritual 
development.  Necessarily,  therefore,  most  of  the 
karma  he  makes  will  unquestionably  'be  good,  but 
since  he  is  still  a  human  being,  some  of  it  will  still 
be  evil,  although  the  proportion  may  be  small.  Now 
although  this  karma  is  a  natural  law  and  works  just 
as  absolutely  as  the  laws  of  physical  nature  down 
here,  yet  it  is  also  administered  by  officials  who  are 
appointed  to  supervise  its  application,  and  there  are 
cases  in  which  they  interfere  with  what  otherwise 
would  be  the  direct  action  of  the  force.  They  can 
never  lessen  the  payment  to  be  made  by  one  iota; 
that  which  a  man  sets  in  motion  will  return  to  him. 
The  officials  cannot  decrease  it,  but  they  can  delay 
or  hasten  its  action,  and  they  do  that  according  as 
they  think  that  it  will  be  for  the  good  of  the  man. 
We  can  see  that  in  the  earlier  stages  of  man's 
development,  when  he  is  still  a  savage,  when  he  is 
the  prey  of  violent  passions  of  all  sorts,  he  would 
naturally  make  a  great  deal  of  evil  karma,  and  if  it 
all  came  down  on  him  at  once  there  would  be  no 


172  The  Christian  Festivals 

progress;  he  would  be  crushed  to  the  earth;  there- 
fore in  all  those  early  stages  of  his  growth  it  is  re- 
tarded. But  when  the  man  'begins  to  have  sufficient 
good  karma  to  offset  it,  gradually  the  unpleasant 
karma  is  released,  and  what  may  be  called  his  fate 
or  destiny  for  a  life  is  really  the  amount  of  that 
karma  which  is  cut  off  and  given  to  him  to  work 
out  in  that  life.  So  a  certain  amount  remains  even 
to  the  end;  but  it  must  then  be  cleared  up. 

That  is  what  happens  at  this  Arhat  Initiation. 
If  we  want  an  example  of  how  such  things  work 
out,  we  have  only  to  read  the  autobiography  of 
Mrs.  Besant,  and  we  shall  see  how  suffering  is 
heaped  upon  one  who  is  about  to  attain.  There 
are  many  other  instances.  Quotations  from  Madame 
Blavatsky  and  Buysbroek  show  us  that  for  many 
centuries  the  idea  has  been  quite  well  understood 
by  people  undertaking  this  higher  life.  They  know 
that  they  must  clear  off  whatever  remains  of  their 
debt  to  the  divine  law,  and  they  are  willing  to  face 
all  the  trouble  and  the  pain  involved  in  doing  so, 
for  the  sake  of  the  power  they  will  then  gain  to  do 
good  to  other  people. 

But  we  in  daily  life,  who  are  far  from  attaining 
such  an  Initiation,  find  that  we  have  a  certain 
amount  of  sorrow  and  trouble  converging  upon  us. 
That  also  is  the  result  of  what  we  have  done  in 
past  lives.  There  is  a  curious  text  which  says, 
"Whom  the  Lord  loveth  He  chasteneth."  In  the 
old  days  I  never  knew  what  that  meant,  and  it  is 
not  common  sense  as  it  is  usually  understood.  The 
reality  behind  it  is  this:  If  a  man  does  exceptionally 
well  in  life,  if  he  clears  off  all  the  early  karma  that 
is  apportioned  to  him,  sometimes  the  Lords  of  Karma 


Holy  Week  173 

will  give  him  a  little  more.  They  will,  to  all  ap- 
pearances, repay  him  for  being  a  good  man  by  giv- 
ing him  some  exceptional  sorrow  and  trouble;  but 
the  reason  is  that  they  think  him  worthy,  think  him 
strong  enough  to  pay  off  a  little  more  of  his  debt, 
and  so  to  draw  nearer  to  the  time  when  he  will  be 
free  from  it  all.  Therefore  it  is  a  compliment  that 
the  Lords  of  Karma  should  heap  additional  suffer- 
ing on  him;  they  are  giving  him  the  sorrow  of  two 
lives  in  one,  and  thus  saving  him  time;  they  are 
decreasing  by  one  the  number  of  lives  that  lie  be- 
fore him,  and  drawing  him  that  much  nearer  to  his 
freedom. 

But  we  in  daily  life  have  another  task  before  us; 
we  have  to  try  to  develop  ourselves  for  the  future. 
That  is  what  is  meant  by  what  is  said  in  the  Gospel 
for  Good  Friday:  "If  any  man  will  not  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  Me,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple." 
That  means  that  every  man  must  take  hold  of  his 
lower  nature  and  subdue  it.  It  is  exceedingly  good 
for  the  man — the  soul — but  it  is  extremely  unplea- 
sant for  the  lower  nature  which  is  being  subdued; 
yet  it  is  an  absolute  necessity,  and  because  down  here 
these  lower  vehicles  are  so  unamenable,  it  does  come 
to  .taking  up  a  definite  cross  and  bearing  a  definite 
amount  of  inconvenience.  Any  one  who  has  a  had 
habit  will  find  that  there  is  no  little  suffering  in- 
volved in  suppressing  it.  If  a  person  has  been  in 
the  habit  of  taking  drugs,  it  is  a  terrible  fight  for 
him  to  conquer  the  habit.  It  is  no  less  a  fight  to 
conquer  a  bad  temper,  to  conquer  laziness,  to  con- 
quer the  habit  of  constant  criticism  and  carping.  All 
these  things  are  definite  crosses,  but  we  must  take 
up  our  cross  and  carry  it,  or  we  cannot  be  the 


174  &he  Christian  Festivals 

Christ's  true  disciples.  So  until  we  have  got  rid 
of  our  failings  a  certain  amount  of  sorrow  and  suf- 
fering is  inevitable  in  daily  life  for  those  of  us  who 
are  trying  to  get  on. 

But  do  not  think  that  the  sorrow  and  suffering  are 
pleasing  to  the  Deity.  That  is  the  horrible  delu- 
sion that  ran  through  mediaeval  ideas  on  this 
subject — the  thought  that  to  fast,  to  torture  the 
body  in  some  way,  was  actually  pleasing  to  God. 
It  is  not  pleasing  to  God.  There  is  an  older  scrip- 
ture than  any  of  ours  which  is  much  wiser  than 
that,  for  there  the  Logos  is  represented  as  saying 
to  His  people:  "Some,  being  ignorant,  torture  Me, 
dwelling  in  their  bodies";  because  all  life  is  the 
divine  life,  and  those  who  torture  the  body  are 
through  it  reacting  upon  the  God  within.  Asceticism 
of  that  kind  is  not  in  itself  useful,  and  is  often 
harmful.  It  is  never  a  good  thing  to  torture  the 
body,  but  it  is  necessary  to  learn  to  control  all 
our  vehicles,  the  physical,  the  astral,  the  mental; 
and  the  doing  of  that  is  very  often  tiresome  and 
troublesome.  Consequently  it  does  amount  to  tak- 
ing up  a  cross,  and  not  being  ashamed  to  face  it. 
It  has  to  be  done.  If  there  is  sorrow,  trouble,  pain, 
we  have  brought  that  upon  ourselves  by  allowing  the 
bad  habits  to  grow  in  the  past.  We  must  face  the 
suffering  and  live  it  down.  That  is  the  real  Good 
Friday  lesson — that  the  cross  we  take  up  in  imita- 
tion of  Christ  is  the  conquest  of  the  lower  nature. 
It  is  not  a  thing  to  do  lightly ;  it  is  a  serious  under- 
taking; if  we  will  not  face  it  in  this  life,  that  only 
means  that  the  bad  habits  will  grow  stronger,  and 
therefore  we  shall  have  more  sorrow  to  conquer  in 
some  future  life.  Therefore  it  is  only  wisdom  and 


Holy  Week  175 

common  sense  to  take  these  matters  in  hand  now. 
This  is  the  occasion  on  which  the  Church  reminds  us 
of  that.  Let  us  find  out  our  weak  points  and  con- 
quer them;  that  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  story  of 
Good  Friday.  If  we  do  that  we  shall  also  under- 
stand and  enter  into  and  realize  the  glory  of  the 
resurrection,  the  freedom  from  that  slavery,  from 
the  evil  habit,  the  coming  up  into  the  higher  life 
which  we  commemorate  on  Easter  Sunday. 

It  does  not  matter  to  what  extent  the  story  in 
the  gospel  is  historical;  these  events  probably  did 
not  occur  as  described  in  that  life  in  Palestine,  but 
it  is  quite  certain  that  our  Lord,  however  long  ago, 
has  passed  through  every  stage  which  we  have  to 
go  through.  In  all  things  He  has  been  tempted  as 
we  are;  in  all  things  He  is  our  Example  and  our 
Leader.  He  does  not  ask  us  to  go  through  anything 
which  He  Himself  has  not  endured  before.  So  it  is 
well  that  we  shall  have  our  eyes  open,  that  we  should 
understand  that  we  are  not  making  mistakes  through 
materializing  and  degrading  the  whole  of  this  beau- 
tiful allegory. 

Therefore,  on  this  day  the  priest  might  well  speak 
to  his  people  of  the  necessity  of  self-sacrifice  in  the 
religious  life,  and  of  the  conquest  of  the  lower 
nature  by  the  higher.  If  an  evening  service  be  said 
upon  Good  Friday  it  should  be  Complin,  as  neither 
Vespers  nor  Benediction  is  permissible. 

Holy  Saturday 

The  ancient  services  of  Holy  Saturday  are  quaint 
and  complicated,  and  many  of  them  originated  long 
before  the  foundation  of  Christianity.  The  procur- 
ing of  the  new  fire,  for  example,  may  be  traced  back 


176  %>he  Christian  Festivals 

to  the  very  earliest  Zoroastrian  times — not  only  to 
the  preaching  of  the  last  Zoroaster,  some  fifteen 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  but  much  farther  back 
still  to  the  time  of  the  first  of  his  long  line  of  pre- 
decessors. The  rubric  in  our  liturgy  prescribes  that 
at  a  convenient  time  before  the  service  fire  is 
kindled  outside  the  church.  It  is  desirable  that  the 
tinder  from  which  this  fire  is  ignited  should  be 
lighted  from  the  sun  by  means  of  a  lens,  but  if  this 
is  not  possible,  flint  and  steel  should  be  used.  The 
altar  is  covered  with  a  plain  linen  cloth  and  violet 
frontal,  but  otherwise  unadorned.  No  candles  are 
yet  lighted.  The  service  begins  with  the  Asperges. 
Then  a  procession  is  formed,  which  moves  to  the 
door  of  the  church.  The  glowing  embers  are  now 
placed  in  an  appropriate  vessel,  such  as  an  open 
thurible,  and  the  priest  blesses  the  new  fire.  Char- 
coal for  burning  the  incense  is  now  lighted  from  the 
new  fire  and  placed  in  another  thurible,  and  a  speci- 
ally prepared  triple  candle  is  lighted  from  the  new 
fire  and  blessed.  The  procession  returns,  the  deacon 
(vested  in  a  white  dalmatic)  bearing  the  triple 
candle  which  was  lighted  from  the  new  fire.  As  the 
procession  passes  up  the  church  four  genuflections 
are  simultaneously  made  by  all  who  take  part  in  it; 
and  at  each  of  these  the  deacon  raises  the  triple 
candle  on  high  and  sings,  " Christ  is  our  Light,"  to 
which  the  people  respond,  "May  His  Light  shine 
in  our  hearts. "  When  they  reach  the  altar  he  recites 
the  Munda  Cor  Meum,  and  the  celebrant  makes  the 
usual  response,  after  which  the  deacon  reads  as  a 
gospel  the  first  twelve  verses  of  that  according  to 
St.  John. 


Holy  Week  177 

A  great  candle  standing  in  a  high  candlestick  at 
the  corner  of  the  space  on  the  gospel  side  of  the 
altar  has  previously  been  prepared.  The  deacon  now 
attaches  to  this  candle  five  grains  of  incense,  and 
the  priest  especially  blesses  it.  The  deacon  then 
lights  it  and  the  altar  candles  from  his  triple  candle, 
and  an  appropriate  collect  is  recited.  The  deacon 
then  resumes  the  violet  dalmatic. 

This  great  candle  is  called  the  Paschal  candle,  and 
is  lighted  at  -all  celebrations  of  the  Holy  Eucharist 
and  at  Vespers,  from  Easter  Day  until  the  Feast 
of  the  Ascension,  when  it  is  solemnly  extinguished 
after  the  Gospel.  It  reappears  on  Whitsun  Eve 
(but  without  its  candlestick)  at  the  ceremony  of  the 
blessing  of  the  font,  in  churches  where  that  is 
performed. 

It  is  the  custom  of  the  Roman  Church  to  conse- 
crate on  this  day  the  water  that  will  be  used  for 
baptisms  during  the  forthcoming  year;  and  if  there 
be  any  fit  subjects,  it  is  considered  desirable  that 
one  or  more  baptisms  should  take  place  at  this  point. 
"We  also  adopt  this  traditional  observance,  if  there 
is  a  candidate  for  baptism ;  though  we  have  preferred 
to  consecrate  water  especially  for  baptism  on  each 
occasion  when  it  is  required.  If  the  water  is  blessed 
now,  the  priest  lowers  the  base  of  the  triple  candle 
into  the  water  and  makes  with  it  the  sign  of  the 
cross  thrice.  After  this  the  Mass  of  the  Presanctified 
follows,  just  as  on  the  previous  day. 

In  ancient  times  the  people  spent  the  night  of 
Holy  Saturday  in  prayer  and  watching,  and  it  was 
often  during  the  night  that  the  water  in  the  font 
was  blessed  and  that  catechumens  were  baptized 
in  readiness  to  share  in  the  celebration  of  the  Resur- 


178  The  Christian  Festivals 

rection  at  dawn.  In  preparation  for  all  this,  long 
discourses  and  scripture  readings  were  given  for  the 
edification  of  the  faithful.  During  the  Middle  Ages 
a  tendency  to  anticipate  liturgical  events  came 
increasingly  and  irresistibly  into  evidence,  and  now 
the  Roman  Church  celebrates  the  Mass  of  the  Resur- 
rection as  well  as  the  blessing  of  the  new  fire  and 
of  the  font  on  the  Saturday  morning.  We  in  the 
Liberal  Catholic  rite  have  reverted  to  the  older  and 
surely*  sounder  usage  of  not  celebrating  the  Mass 
of  the  Resurrection  until  Easter  morning.  The  ser- 
vice of  Vespers  on  Saturday  is,  of  course,  that  of 
Easter  itself,  and  consequently  is  in  every  way  as 
grand  as  it  can  be  made. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 
EASTER 

The  festivals  of  the  Church  are  divided  into 
several  classes  according  to  their  importance.  As  I 
have  already  explained,  all  the  greater  festivals  have 
what  is  called  an  octave;  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
celebrated  over  the  whole  week  and  the  eighth  day 
is  practically  a  repetition  of  the  feast.  Easter  is 
the  very  greatest  of  them  all — so  great  that  its 
celebration  lasts  even  longer,  and  in  its  honour  we 
keep  the  great  forty  days,  running  on  until  the  time 
of  the  Ascension;  and  during  that  period  we 
burn  the  special  Paschal  candle  for  an  indication 
that  this  is  all  part  of  the  most  splendid  festival  of 
the  Christian  year. 

The  word  Easter  is  derived  from  Eostre,  which 
is  the  name  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  goddess  of  Spring; 
there  is  a  further  derivation  beyond  that,  because 
Eostre  is  only  another  form  of  Ishtar,  Ashtaroth  or 
Astarte,  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  and  even  that  in  turn, 
if  we  go  far  enough  back,  comes  from  the  Sanskrit 
Us,  which  means  light;  the  word  from  which  springs 
the  title  Ushas,  the  dawn  maidens  of  the  Vedas.  So 
fundamentally  Easter  is  the  great  festival  of  light — 
of  the  rising  again  of  the  Light  of  the  World. 

All  the  symbology  of  our  evolution  centres  round 
the  fountain  and  origin  of  that  evolution — the  Solar 
Deity,  Who  in  the  Greek  philosophy  was  called  the 
Logos  of  our  system.  Logos  means  "Word";  it 
is  the  Greek  term  used  in  the  well-known  and  most 
beautiful  text:  "In  the  beginning  was  the  Word, 

179 


180  The  Christian  Festivals 

and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was 
God."  Let  us  try  to  understand  a  little  of  what 
these  words  meant  to  their  writer.  Modern  Chris- 
tian belief  has  become  largely  material  and  non- 
philosophical,  chiefly,  as  I  have  stated,  because  of 
its  most  unfortunate  and  persistent  confusion  of  the 
very  personal  Jewish  tribal  deity  Jehovah  with  the 
Supreme  First  Cause  of  all.  Those  who  hold  to  that 
illogical  confusion  think  of  God  as  a  Father,  but  a 
savage  and  tyrannical  Father,  jealous  and  cruel 
beyond  all  earthly  experience,  capriciously  creating 
one  man  healthy  and  another  full  of  fell  disease  from 
his  very  birth,  throwing  one  man  at  birth  into  the 
lap  of  affluence  and  another  into  grinding  poverty, 
and  capable  of  casting  either  or  both  of  these  men 
into  everlasting  torture  after  death  if  they  will  not 
do  violence  to  the  intellect  with  which  He  has  en- 
dowed them  by  pretending  to  believe  certain 
incredible  stories. 

It  is  indeed  most  true  that  no  man  can  compre- 
hend God;  but  we  can  at  least  form  a  more  intelli- 
gent conception  of  Him  than  this,  and  the  first  step 
towards  such  a  conception  is  to  recognize  that  He 
has  many  manifestations.  Of  the  Absolute,  the 
Infinite,  the  All-embracing,  we  can  at  our  present 
stage  know  nothing,  except  that  He  is;  we  can  say 
nothing  that  is  not  a  limitation,  and  therefore  in- 
accurate. But  in  Him  are  innumerable  universes; 
in  each  universe  millions  of  solar  systems.  Each 
solar  system  is  the  expression  of  a  mighty  Being 
Whom  we  call  the  Solar  Deity,  the  Logos,  the  Word 
or  expression  of  that  infinite  God.  This  Solar  Deity 
is  to  His  system  all  that  men  mean  by  the  title  God. 
He  permeates  it;  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  is  not 


Easter  181 

He;  it  is  the  manifestation  of  Him  in  such  matter 
as  we  can  see.  Yet  He  exists  above  it  and  outside 
it  as  well,  living  a  stupendous  life  of  His  own  among 
His  Peers.  As  is  said  in  a  scripture  older  than  ours : 
"Having  permeated  this  whole  universe  with  one 
fragment  of  Myself,  I  remain. " 

Out  of  Himself  this  Solar  Deity  has  called  this 
mighty  system  into  being.  We  who  are  in  it  are 
evolving  fragments  of  His  Life,  sparks  of  His  divine 
Fire ;  from  Him  we  all  have  come ;  into  Him  we  shall 
all  return.  He  pours  Himself  down  into  matter,  and 
thus  suffers  very  truly  an  eclipse,  a  crucifixion,  a 
death,  and  then  rises  again  out  of  that  matter  in 
order  that  we,  humanity,  may  be.  The  whole  life 
of  the  solar  system  comes  from  Him,  and  therefore 
those  who  wish  to  fulfil  that  which  He  has  indi- 
cated for  us,  those  who  wish  to  become  wise,  to 
become  Initiates,  must  follow  in  His  footsteps  and 
develop  as  He  has  developed.  All  the  ancient  reli- 
gions have  taken  up  these  ideas  and  have  woven 
them  into  beautiful  symbols,  differing  according  to 
the  religion,  the  race,  and  the  people;  and  that  very 
same  symbolism,  which  indicates  and  describes  the 
life  of  the  Initiate  in  terms  of  the  life  of  the  Sun 
God,  exists  here  in  our  Christian  Church,  and  is 
shown  in  the  course  of  our  Christian  Year. 

The  first  half  of  that  year  (from  Advent  and 
Christmas  up  to  Trinity  Sunday)  is  as  it  were  the 
active,  eventful  part  of  the  solar  life;  and  then 
the  next  six  months  are  devoted  to  practising  and 
preserving  what  we  have  learnt,  so  we  pass  into  the 
comparatively  calm  waters  of  the  Sundays  after 
Trinity,  when  all  goes  on  quite  quietly  with  only 
occasional  great  festivals,  none  of  which  are  con- 


182  The  Christian  Festivals 

nected  with  the  life-story  of  the  Christ,  which  is 
also  the  life  of  the  Sun-God.  In  all  religions  alike 
the  Sun-God  is  always  horn  in  midwinter,  directly 
after  the  shortest  day,  born  at  midnight  of  the  24th 
of  December  when  the  constellation  Virgo  is  on  the 
horizon.  Hence  it  is  said  that  He  is  born  from  the 
Virgin;  -and  yet  after  the  birth,  when  the  sun  has 
risen  into  the  heavens,  Virgo  still  remains  the  im- 
maculate and  heavenly  Virgin.  We  see  there  a 
sidelight  upon  the  story  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion which  appears  not  only  in  our  religion  but  in 
many  other  older  faiths. 

The  Sun-God  is  reborn,  because  the  shortest  day 
in  the  northern  latitude  is  past;  for  months  the 
days  have  been  growing  steadily  shorter,  as  though 
He  were  being  vanquished  by  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness; but  now  this  decrease  is  conquered,  and  He 
begins  to  reassert  His  powers,  and  the  night  slowly 
yields  before  Him.  He  has  still  to  pass  through  the 
storms  and  tribulations  of  winter;  and  that  is  why 
the  early  life  of  the  Sun-God  in  all  religions  is 
always  surrounded  by  trouble  and  sorrow  and  diffi- 
culty. Krishna  suffered  much  from  persecution  and 
had  to  be  hidden  among  the  cowherds  as  a  child, 
because  the  king  sought  His  life;  the  Lord  Jesus 
was  assailed  by  Herod,  who  attempted  to  kill  Him; 
in  all  the  stories  of  the  Christ-life  in  any  religion 
we  find  the  same  thread  running  through.  Osiris 
Himself,  thousands  of  years  before,  was  cut  to 
pieces  and  destroyed  by  Set,  and  only  after  that  He 
was  gathered  together  and  rose  again.  In  Ancient 
Egypt  the  people  mourned  over  the  death  of  Osiris, 
just  as  some  Christians  now  mourn  over  the  death 
of  the  Christ  on  Good  Friday,  and  they  rejoiced  in 


Easter  183 

the  great  festival  of  the  assembling  together,  the, 
gathering  together  of  that  which  had  been  separ- 
ated, just  as  we  now  rejoice  at  Easter.  Those  old 
religions  taught  the  same  truths  which  we  teach 
now;  truth  is  one,  although  it  is  many-sided,  and 
the  presentations  in  those  old  days  were  not  at  all 
unlike  the  presentations  put  before  us  now. 

Great  are  the  storms  and  tribulations  of  winter, 
but  the  Sun- God  survives  them  all,  and  His  strength 
is  steadily  growing  as  the  days  lengthen  towards  the 
vernal  equinox.  At  that  equinox,  as  the  name 
implies,  day  and  night  are  exactly  equal  all  over 
the  world;  and  after  it  the  sun  crosses  the  line,  so 
that  in  the  northern  hemisphere  the  days  grow 
steadily  longer,  and  the  victory  of  the  Sun-God 
over  night  is  assured.  He  rises  triumphantly 
over  the  line  and  ascends  in  the  heavens,  ripening 
the  corn  and  the  grape,  pouring  His  Life  into  them 
to  make  their  substance,  and  through  them  giving 
Himself  to  His  worshippers. 

Every  one  of  us  will  have  in  turn  to  undergo 
the  suffering  symbolized  by  the  cross;  every  one  of 
us  must  learn  how  to  give  himself  up  utterly  for 
others;  but  also  for  every  one  of  us  is  the  glory  of 
Easter,  the  Resurrection,  the  victory,  the  triumph 
over  matter. 

That  still  remains  ever  and  gloriously  true.  The 
victory  which  man  gains  over  the  lower  nature  is 
something  which  must  be  achieved  in  the  life  of 
every  Christian  man.  There  must  come  in  his  life 
a  point  at  which  he  finally  triumphs  over  the  lower 
matter  and  rises  out  of  the  darkness  of  sin  and 
ignorance  into  the  light  ef  wisdom  and  the  higher, 
purer  life.  So  Easter  is  not  only  the  commemora- 


184  The  Christian  Festivals 

tion  of  something  in  the  far-distant  past;   it  is   a 

real  day  of  celebration  and  of  thankfulness  for  the 

victory  which  man  has  gained,  is  gaining,  and  will 

gain  all  through  the  ages  over  that  which  is  lower, 

that  which  is  less  developed.       In  everyone  of  us 

there  is  the  divine  spark.    The  Christ  said :  ' '  Ye  are 

gods,  ye  are  all  the  children  of  the    Most  High." 

In  every  one  of  us  that  divine  spark  is  the  true  man, 

and  that  spark  manifests  himself  in  lower  planes  in 

the  soul  of  man,  the  ego ;  and  that  in  turn  puts  down 

to  still  lower  levels  the  personality,  which  is  what 

we  know  as  the  self  down  here.    We  are  only  a  tiny 

fragment  of  a  fragment  of  the  magnificent  reality. 

That  which  we  see  ourselves  to  be  down  here  is  as 

it  were  the  seed  of  the  future  glory,  but  each  one  of 

us  is  also  a  soul;  more  than  that,  each  is  a  spirit>— 

the   divine  spark,   slowly,    slowly    unveiling    itself, 

slowly  developing  the  qualities  through  which  it  can 

show  itself,  so  that  man  may  know  it  for  what  it 

is.     At  present  the  spark  burns  low;  at  present  we 

are  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  higher  part  of  our 

evolution.     We  have  won  a  great  victory  already  in 

that  we  are  here  as  men,  we  whose  life  has  passed 

through  all  the  lower  stages,  the  kingdoms  of  the 

mineral,  the  vegetable,  the  animal,  in  ages  long  gone 

by.     We  have  reached  humanity,    we  have    joined 

.  with  the  Father  and  have  developed  the  soul;  but 

that  soul  in  its  turn  must  grow  and  expand.     Just 

as  the  personality  has  to  become  one  with  that  soul, 

so  has  that  soul  in  turn  to  become  one    with  the 

divine  spark  which  it  represents,  and  then  later  still 

the  divine  spark  sweeps  back  into  the  flame  of  which 

it  is  a  part,  and  God  is  all  in  all. 


Easter  185 

Every  stage  of  that  progress  is  a  victory;  every 
stage  of  that  progress  is  very  truly  a  resurrection, 
a  rising  from  the  lower  to  the  higher.  The  life 
of  the  Christ  is  a  type  of  the  life  of  every  one  of 
His  followers.  As  I  have  said,  we,  too,  must  pass 
through  those  stages,  those  steps,  those  Initiations 
through  which  the  Christ  passed.  We  must  suffer 
with  Him  all  the  sorrow  and  the  pain  of  this  past 
week,  a  veritable  crucifixion  of  all  that  seems  to  the 
man  worth  having;  but  he  who  endures  to  the  end, 
he  who  passes  through  that  test  as  he  should,  for 
him  the  glory  of  Easter  is  to  be  also  revealed,  he 
also  will  gain  the  victory  which  makes  him  more 
than  man,  which  raises  him  to  the  level  of  the  Christ 
Spirit.  That  victory  is  for  every  one  of  us,  and 
when  we  thank  God  for  the  Easter  festival,  we  are 
thanking  Him  for  that  magnificent  possibility,  and 
also  for  the  fact  that  there  are  many  even  now  who 
have  realized  that.  It  is  true  that  we  see  but  few 
of  them,  for  these  who  rise  to  such  a  height  do  pass 
somewhat  away  from  the  ordinary  life  of  men,  and 
necessarily  must  do  so.  Their  aims  are  so  different 
from  those  of  most  of  us  as  yet,  that  their  whole 
life  must  be  different  too.  It  is  indeed  difficult  for 
them  when  their  lot  is  still  cast  in  the  busy  world. 
There  are  those  who,  having  gained  that  rank,  still 
need  for  the  helping  of  others  to  work  here  on  earth, 
but  their  life  is  one  of  tremendous  strain,  of  very 
great  trial  in  many  ways.  It  cannot  be  a  life  of 
happiness  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  although 
it  is  one  of  spiritual  and  interior  happiness  always, 
because  there  is  a  joy  that  nothing  earthly  can 
touch.  No  trouble,  no  pain,  no  suffering  down  here 
can  affect  the  union  with  God  which  such  men  have 


186  The  Christian  Festivals 

attained;  and  so  even  though,  their  life  down  here 
must  be  ever  one  of  strain  and  stress  and  struggle, 
yet  the  glory  is  so  far  greater  that  no  words  can 
ever  express  it — that  this  trifling  affliction,  which  is 
but  for  a  moment,  weighs  for  them  as  nothing  be- 
side the  far  more  exceeding  weight  of  glory. 

It  is  then  that  possibility  for  which  we  thank 
God,  and  as  I  have  said,  we  thank  Him  also  for  the 
fact  that  there  be  many  who  have  attained  this, 
thereby  showing  us  that  it  is  possible  for  all  of  us. 
I  fear  that  sometimes  when  the  example  of  the 
great  saints  and  the  mighty  Angels  is  held  up  before 
us  it  all  seems  to  us  unreachable,  impossible.  We 
feel  perhaps:  "Yes,  it  is  all  very  well  when  one 
gets  to  that  height;  but  what  of  us  who  seem  so 
many  miles  away,  so  many  ages  behind?"  Yet  all 
who  can  see  the  higher  levels,  all  who  can.  see  the 
steps  of  the  ladder  of  life  above  us  and  below  us, 
agree  in  telling  us  that  they  see  men  standing  on 
every  one  of  those  steps,  and  that  those  who  are 
now  so  far  above  us  that  in  their  knowledge  and 
power  they  seem  to  us  like  gods,  tell  us  that  no  long 
time  ago  they  stood  where  we  stand,  and  that  we, 
if  we  persevere,  shall  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt 
or  question  stand  presently  where  they  stand  now. 

"If  Christ  be  risen,  then  shall  we  also  rise"  was 
the  argument  of  old,  and  indeed  that  is  true,  and 
true  in  many  different  ways;  in  no  way  more  than 
in  regard  to  this  symbol  of  which  I  speak. 

Because  He  has  conquered  evil,  because  He  has 
risen  above  matter,  others  have  been  able  to  follow 
Him  and  to  do  the  same  great  deed;  and  because 
they  have  done  it,  we  shall  do  it  also.  Easter  is  a 
magnificent  reality  to  every  one  of  us,  just  as  it  was 


Easter  187 

to  Him.  At  Christinas  we  sing  not  only  the  com- 
memoration of  the  victory  of  the  birth  of  the  Christ 
(even  in  one  of  its  many  symbolical  forms)  ;  but  we 
also  sing  a  personal  possibility.  It  was  no  figure 
of  speech  when  we  said:  "Unto  us  a  child  is  born, 
unto  us  a  Son  is  given. "  The  possibility  is  for  us, 
for  every  one  of  us,  and  we  should  feel  that  with 
the  glory  of  the  resurrection  at  Easter,  the  mighty 
triumph  of  good  over  ill  is  an  absolute  and  actual 
reality  for  each  individual.  Not  a  thing  which  is 
far  away  out  of  reach,  that  may  or  may  not  reflect 
its  glory  upon  us,  but  a  real  definite  step  which  each 
individual  here  and  elsewhere  will  take  in  the  future, 
a  real  thing  which  we  can  put  before  us  with  the 
certainty  that  we  can  gain  it. 

Some  will  gain  it  comparatively  quickly;  some  will 
be  slower  in  their  rising;  that  is  within  our  power. 
We  may  hasten  or  we  may  delay  our  journey  to 
that  glorious  goal,  but  we  cannot  throw  ourselves 
out  of  the  path  for  ever.  We  cannot  prevent  our 
final  victory  of  attainment,  whatever  we  may  do. 
There  are  men  who  are  what  we  call  wicked,  which 
means  that  they  have  strayed  far  away  from  the 
direct  path  to  God.  They  are  wicked  because  they 
are  foolish  and  ignorant,  because  they  do  not  under- 
stand; but  however  far  they  may  stray  from  the 
great  path  they  will  return  to  it,  for  that  is  what 
God  meant  for  them  from  the  beginning.  They 
may  turn  their  backs  on  the  light;  they  may  delay 
their  progress,  but  the  pressure  of  that  definite 
WTill  will  bring  them  back  to  the  path  sooner  or 
later,  and  they  who  now  are  ignorant  must  learn  the 
truth  of  God.  They  who  sit  in  darkness,  upon  them 
shall  the  light  shine;  they  who  feel  themselves  at 


188  The  Christian  Festivals 

present  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  they  who  feel 
themselves  to  be  suffering  a  veritable  crucifixion — 
for  them  also  and  inevitably  shall  come  the  glory 
of  the  Easter  victory,  the  utter  final  triumph  of  good 
over  ill. 

In  His  Resurrection  is  the  earnest  of  our  own. 
Because  the  Logos  Himself  has  entered  matter, 
has  triumphed,  and  has  risen  from  it;  because 
the  Christ,  the  great  "World-Teacher,  has  passed 
through  that  experience  also,  it  is  certain  for 
every  one  of  us  that,  when  our  time  comes  to 
endure  that  suffering  and  that  crucifixion,  it  will 
lead  us,  as  it  led  Him,  to  the  higher  glory  of  the 
resurrection  and  to  final  triumph — a  triumph  which 
is  final  because  it  is  based  on  knowledge.  The 
Initiate  knows  that  wherein  he  believes;  and  matter 
can  never  again  conquer  him  who  has  learnt  that 
all,  matter  and  spirit  alike,  is  equally  part  of  God, 
and  is  equally  included  in  the  divine  plan  which 
leads  us  to  this  glorious  victory.  For  the  victory  is 
to  become  one  with  Him — one  with  Him  Who  is  All 
in  All.  Therefore  is  it  an  eternal  victory;  there- 
fore is  it  forever;  therefore  can  there  be  no  doubt, 
and  no  hesitation,  because  when  we  are  one  with 
Him  we  know.  Then  shall  we  be  like  Him,  because 
we  see  Him  as  He  is;  because  we  really  know,  there- 
fore we  cannot  fall  back. 

"We  may  or  may  not  regard  the  bible  allegory 
which  is  read  to  us  at  Easter  as  representing  a  his- 
torical occurrence  on  the  physical  plane;  our  people 
are  entirely  free  to  believe  or  disbelieve;  but  most 
of  us  hold  that  it  embodies  in  symbolical  form  a 
great  and  mighty  truth.  Therefore  is  Easter  for  us 
a  glorious  festival;  therefore  we  celebrate  it  in  every 


Easter  189 

way  we  can.  Therefore  have  we  a  true  joy  in 
exchanging  with  one  another  the  traditional  Easter 
greeting.  For  just  as  on  Christmas  Day  we  wish 
one  another  a  happy  Christmas,  so  when  the  early 
Christians  met  one  another  on  Easter  Day  one  said 
to  the  other:  ;'The  Lord  hath  arisen/'  and  the  reply, 
was:  ''He  is  risen  indeed."  Not  from  an  earthly 
grave,  but  from  the  grave  of  matter;  risen  in  truth 
and  in  splendid  reality — risen  for  evermore.  So  in 
his  victory  we  triumph  too,  and  in  the  joy  of  the 
Lord  His  Church  rejoices  also. 


CHAPTEK  IX 
ASCENSION  DAY 

Four  of  the  festivals  of  the  Christian  Church 
have  always  been  recognized  as  the  greatest — Christ- 
mas, Easter,  the  Ascension  Day  and  Whitsun-day. 
Three  of  these  have  been  accepted  by  the  outer 
world  as  public  holidays;  but  that  has  not  hap- 
pened to  the  same  extent  in  the  case  of  the  Ascen- 
sion Day,  probably  because  it  falls  so  near  to  Whit- 
sun-day— only  ten  days  before  it — and  the  latter, 
being  a  Sunday,  is  more  convenient  for  popular 
observance.  Ascension  Day,  however,  is  one  of  those 
which  our  Roman  brethren  call  holy  days  of  obliga- 
tion, upon  which  all  true  members  of  the  Church 
are  supposed  to  join  in  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist,  and  if  possible  communicate.  The 
original  reason  for  that  requirement  is  that  each  of 
these  great  feasts  has  its  own  special  type  of  forcer 
which  is  outpoured  upon  it,  and  the  Church  wishes 
that  her  people  should  have  the  advantage  of  all 
these  different  streams  of  grace,  in  order  that  their 
characters  may  be  properly  rounded  out  and  evenly 
developed. 

Regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  life 
of  the  Christ  this  is  quite  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  festivals.  There  is  an  old  monastic  hymn  which 
rather  beautifully  emphasizes  this,  explaining  that 
though  we  are  full  of  joy  at  Christmas  when  the 
Angels  come  down  and  sing  the  birth  of  the  Infant 
King,  in  all  that  joy  there  cannot  but  be  some 
thought  of  the  weary  life,  containing  much  of  suf- 
fering, misunderstanding  and  persecution,  which  lay 

190 


Ascension  Day  191 

before  that  Holy  Child.  And  even  at  the  greatest 
festival  of  all — the  triumph  over  death  at  Easter — 
the  Lord's  life  on  earth  is  not  yet  finished;  there  still 
remains  work  for  Him  to  do  in  the  teaching  of  His 
people.  But  when  we  reach  the  Day  of  the  Ascen- 
sion all  earthly  labours  are  over,  for  this  is  the  final 
triumph,  when  Christ  takes  His  place  for  ever  at 
the  right  hand  of  the  Father.  Assuredly  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Church  this  should  be,  and 
according  to  our  Liturgy  it  is,  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  festivals. 

From  the  inner  point  of  view  also  it  is  a  day  of 
deep  meaning  and  importance,  for  the  Ascension  and 
Whitsun-day  taken  together  typify  the  fifth  Initi- 
ation, that  of  the  Adept.  In  that  the  man  rises 
from  earth  to  heaven,  and  for  the  first  time 
definitely  steps  outside  ordinary  humanity.  In  the 
Arhat  stage,  which  comes  before  this,  he  is  already 
free  from  some  of  the  restrictions  of  common  human 
life,  for  he  has  so  far  worked  out  his  karma  that 
he  is  no  longer  compelled  to  reincarnate  on  the 
physical  plane,  though  he  usually  does  so  in  order 
to  help  others;  and  that  immunity  from  lower  neces- 
sities is  symbolized  in  the  narrative  by  the  nature 
of  Christ's  resurrection-body,  which  passes  through 
closed  doors,  and  appears  and  disappears  at  will. 
But  in  this  fifth  Initiation  he  reaches  the  goal  which 
is  set  before  humanity  in  this  chain  of  worlds.  With 
the  fifth  Initiation  He  also  achieves  union  with  a 
certain  aspect  of  the  Third  Person  of  the  great 
Solar  Logos;  and  one  of  the  effects  of  this  is  typified 
by  the  downpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  Whit- 
sun-day, to  which  we  shall  make  further  reference  a 
little  later. 


192  The  Christian  Festivals 

We  are  not  on  this  day  celebrating  the  attain- 
ment of  that  level  by  any  one  man  only.  We  can 
of  course  look  back  to  the  time  "  when  the  Great 
World-Teacher  Himself  took  this  step,  but  that  was 
far  back  in  the  night  of  time,  in  the  mists  of  pre- 
historic periods;  we  are  really  celebrating  the  great 
fact  that  for  us  also  is  possible  this  transcending 
of  humanity — this  ascension  from  earth  to  higher 
realms;  and  so  we  pray  in  the  words  of  the  old  col- 
lect of  the  Church  that  since  our  Lord  Christ  has 
thus  ascended  into  heaven  we  may  also  in  heart  and 
mind  thither  ascend,  and  with  Him  continually 
dwell.  Of  course  those  who  take  the  literal  view 
of  the  gospel  suppose  that  to  mean  that  they  will 
rest  for  ever  amid  clouds  of  glory  in  the  presence 
of  the  physical  body  of  the  Christ.  We  should  raise 
our  thought  a  little  higher  than  that  and  understand 
that  to  dwell  for  ever  with  Christ  is  to  be  truly 
united  with  Him  in  consciousness,  so  that  whatever 
work  we  may  afterwards  choose  to  take  up  for  the 
benefit  of  this  or  any  other  humanity,  wherever  we 
may  go  in  the  whole  solar  system,  we  shall  never 
lose  that  consciousness  of  His  intimate  unity  with  us. 

And  so  very  truly  we  shall  rise  with  Him  and 
with  Him  continually  dwell;  that  will  be  true  of  all 
of  us.  May  that  time  come  soon,  that  in  His  Name 
and  for  His  sake  and  by  means  of  our  unity  with 
Him  we  may  be  able  to  spread  to  others  the  glorious 
gospel  which  He  has  taught,  and  the  spiritual  power 
which  He  pours  forth  through  that  gospel. 


CHAPTEK  X 

WHITSUN-DAY 

Whitsun-day  is  the  last  of  what  have  been  called 
the  four  great  festivals  of  the  Christian  Year;  and 
although  in  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  put  in 
many  cases  a  different  interpretation  on  them,  all 
these  great  festivals  have  their  meaning  for  us,  just 
as  they  have  for  other  branches  of  the  Church. 

Whitsun-day  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  merely 
a  commemoration  of  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
upon  the  apostles  ten  days  after  the  Ascension  of 
our  Lord  into  heaven.  I  do  not  know  whether  that 
happened  exactly  as  it  is  stated  or  not.  Many  people 
have  disputed  it  on  what  seem  to  be  good  grounds, 
but  the  point  for  us  to  understand,  about  this  as 
about  the  other  festivals,  is  what  Origen,  the  greatest 
of  the  Church  Fathers,  said  with  regard  to  the 
gospel  story.  He  did  not  in  the  least  deny  that  all 
these  events  happened  in  Judaea,  but  he  said  that 
what  happened  once  in  Palestine  is  of  no  consequence 
to  us;  the  fact  of  importance  is  that  all  these  events 
are  symbols  of  spiritual  facts,  which  occur  in  the 
life  of  every  Christian  man. 

This  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  symbol  of 
a  great  reality  which  takes  place  in  the  life  of  the 
initiated  disciple.  The  man  who  has  reached 
Adeptship  enters  a  higher  Kingdom,  and  becomes 
more  than  man;  and  for  that  reason  He  was  repre- 
sented as  rising  clear  away  from  earth  into  heaven. 
The  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  connection  with 
it  is  intended  to  symbolize  the  wonderfully  intimate 
and  mysterious  union  between  the  Adept  and  the 
Deity  through  the  Monad  of  that  Adept,  and  the 

193 


194  The  Christian  Festivals 

outpouring  of  spiritual  force  which  thereby  comes 
upon  the  world  through  him — a  glorious  mystery 
which  we  cannot  fully  grasp  yet. 

We  must  therefore  understand  this  festival  as  the 
celebration  of  the  union  of  God  and  man,  and  of 
the  consequent  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the 
world.  I  do  not  question  that  some  such  event  may 
have  occurred  in  connection  with  the  life  of  Jesus, 
but  its  importance  to  us  is  the  fact  that  it  happens 
in  the  course  of  the  Initiate  life,  and  that  it  will 
therefore  one  day  happen  to  every  one  of  us.  The 
very  name  of  the  day  indicates  that,  although  a  mis- 
taken derivation  is  given  to  it  by  many  people.  It 
is  often  said  that  "Whitsun-day  is  a  corruption  of 
White  Sunday,  and  that  it  was  so  called  because  on 
that  day  candidates  robed  in  white  were  presented 
for  baptism.  That  is  not  the  true  derivation,  for 
Whitsun  is  really  a  corruption  of  an  old  Anglo- 
Saxon  word  Pfingsten,  which  means  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Therefore  it  should  be  pronounced  with  the  accent 
on  the  first  syllable,  and  it  is  to  help  our  people  to 
remember  that  pronunciation  that  I  am  carefully 
spelling  it  with  a  hyphen. 

It  may  be  noticed  that  the  Holy  Ghost  occupies 
a  curious  position,  if  we  may  venture  reverently  to 
say  so,  in  the  older  prayer  books  and  services.  The 
Athanasian  Creed  tells  us,  very  truly,  that  in  the 
Trinity  none  is  afore  or  after  other,  none  is  greater 
or  less  than  another,  but  that  They  are  all  co-equal 
and  co-eternal;  yet  we  may  notice  that  while  in  the 
Roman  and  Anglican  liturgies  there  are  many 
prayers  to  God  the  Father  and  to  God  the  Son, 
there  are  almost  none  to  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  Also 
there  are  very  few  churches  dedicated  to  the  Holy 


Whitsun-Day  195 

Ghost.  In  the  Hindu  religion  it  would  seem  that  a 
similar  curious  occlusion  has  arisen,  but  with  re- 
gard to  the  First  Aspect  instead  of  the  Third;  for 
I  am  told  that  in  all  India  there  is  only  one  temple 
dedicated  to  Brahma,  though  there  are  thousands 
to  Vishnu  and  Shiva, 

The  reason  for  this  is  that  there  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  misunderstanding  with  regard  to  the  place 
of  the  Third  Person  of  the  Ever-blessed  Trinity. 
We  read  often  of  Him  as  being  sent  by  Christ,  as 
if  He  were,  if  we  may  say  so  with  reverence,  a  mere 
influence  to  be  poured  out.  This  is  not  true.  He 
is  a  Person  of  the  Trinity,  as  great  as  the  Others, 
for  all  are  equal.  Remember  that  the  Trinity  is  a 
mystery ;  it  will  remain  a  mystery  whatsoever  any 
of  us  may  say  or  think  about  it.  For  it  is  far 
above,  out  of  our  reach;  but  something  of  what 
it  means  to  us  we  may  comprehend;  it  is  right  and 
proper  that  we  should  try  to  understand  what  we 
can  of  it. 

All  religions  have  a  Trinity,  but  they  differ  to 
some  extent  in  the  way  in  which  they  make  up  that 
Trinity — the  point  of  view  from  which  they  look  at 
it.  The  Trinity  of  the  older  religions  was  nearly 
always  Father,  Mother,  Son;  for  •  example,  in 
Ancient  Egypt  it  was  Osiris,  Isis  and  Horus.  The 
Hindu  Trinity  is  the  Creator,  the  Preserver  and  the 
Destroyer;  but  the  maternal  side  is  brought  in  by 
each  of  them  having  what  is  called  a  shakti  or  power 
which  is  always  regarded  as  feminine.  The  Zoroas- 
trian  Trinity  has  almost  the  modern  idea  of  spirit, 
matter  and  the  active  force  generated  by  their  inter- 
action— Ormuzd,  Ahriman  (who  afterwards  came  to 
be  regarded  as  the  devil,  but  was  originally  part  of 


196  The  Christian  Festivals 

the  Trinity)  and  Mithra,  who  took  the  place  of  the 
Son.  So  although  that  is  not  exactly  Father,  Mother, 
Son,  it  is  yet  eternal  spirit,  eternal  matter  and  the 
active  force  coming  from  them — Mithra  the  Son.  The 
Christian  Trinity  is  not  quite  either  of  those;  it  has 
the  Father,  the  Son,  alone-born  from  Him,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  proceeding  from  both.  In  the  Chris- 
tian Trinity  there  is  no  feminine  element  at  all — 
nothing  which  can  be  taken  as  representing  matter 
alone.  Various  attributes  properly  belonging  to 
that  line  of  thought  have  been  given  in  that  sym- 
bolism to  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  it  would  seem 
as  though  He  represents  several  different  features, 
or  is  perhaps  a  kind  of  combination  of  several  lines 
of  thought  or  symbolism. 

The  nearest  that  we  can  get  in  history  to  the 
Christian  presentation  of  the  Trinity  as  Father,  Son 
and  Holy  Ghost  is  the  philosophical  conception  of 
the  Three  Aspects  of  the  Logos.  There  is  no 
feminine  in  either,  and  they  do  very  closely  corres- 
pond. The  feminine  aspect  is  brought  in  as  the 
mother-matter  or  root  of  matter  which  in  Hinduism 
is  called  Mulaprakriti,  which  however  is  not  part  of 
the  Trinity,  just  as  in  the  Christian  system  the 
Blessed  Virgin  stands  outside  the  Trinity,  but  never- 
theless is  intimately  connected  with  Its  Persons — 
represented,  for  example,  in  a  well-known  hymn  as 
Mother,  Daughter,  Spouse  of  God.  Mother  of  God 
as  Christ  (not  the  eternal  Christ,  alone-born  of  the 
Father,  but  the  secondary  Christ  as  man) ;  daughter 
of  God  on  the  theory  that  she  was  immaculately  con- 
ceived by  Anna  her  mother,  and  then  spouse  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  the  immaculate  conception  of  the 
Christ.  But  to  try  to  apply  this  elaborate  cosmic 


Whitsun-Day  197 

symbolism  to  the  noble  Jewish  lady  who  was  the 
mother  of  Jesus  materializes  the  whole  conception, 
and  indeed  makes  it  ridiculous. 

The  Christian  Trinity  represents  three  stages  of 
emanation,  and  they  to  some  extent  agree  with  and 
are  the  prototypes  of  the  division  into  Power, 
Wisdom,  and  Intelligence,  because  God  the  Father 
is  the  Creator  of  all;  the  atma  or  spirit  in  man  is 
an  expression  of  Him,  verily  a  part  of  Him;  while 
God  the  Son  is  the  Wisdom  by  Whom  all  things 
were  made.  God  the  Father  is  the  Creator,  but  He 
creates  through  the  Son;  the  power  is  exercised 
through  the  Son,  the  Wisdom.  Then  we  have  the 
Third  Aspect,  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  corresponds 
with  the  idea  of  manas  or  intelligence  in  man, 
just  as  buddhi  or  intuition  corresponds  with  the 
Wisdom,  and  atma  or  spirit  with  the  Light  or 
Power  beyond. 

The  Christian  conception  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
includes  the  oriental  idea  of  the  Light  of  the 
Logos — the  Arm  coming  forth  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son  by  which  to  a  large  extent  the 
Divine  Work  is  done  down  here;  not,  however,  in 
any  sense  a  mere  instrument  or  messenger,  as 
an  Angel  might  be,  but  a  veritable  Arm ;  the 
Activity  Aspect  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  when  we 
look  at  the  Three  Persons  as  Will,  Wisdom  and 
Activity.  It  may  be  of  use  to  attempt  to  illustrate 
this  by  a  diagram;  for  though  this  cannot  of 
course  explain  so  stupendous  a  mystery,  it  may 
aid  our  thought  in  its  excursion  into  these  un- 
familiar regions.  The  problem  is  so  complex  that 
it  is  not  wise  to  despise  any  assistance  in  keeping  its 
many  sides  simultaneously  before  the  mind. 


The  Christian  Festivals 


Whitsun-Day  199 


DIAGEAM:    THE   HOLY   TEINITY 

Iii  this  diagram  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  show  the 
relationship  of  the  Persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  Let  no  one 
think  that  we  are  irreverent  or  presumptuous  in  making  such 
an  attempt.  We  are  fully  aware,  we  have  the  most  absolute 
and  overwhelming  conviction,  that  the  Great  Architect  of  the 
Universe  infinitely  transcends  our  feeble  human  thought,  and 
that  any  endeavour  to  picture  even  the  lowest  of  His  myriad 
manifestations  must  inevitably  fall  short  of  the  truth  in  many 
ways.  Yet  we  have  found  that  reverent  effort  to  understand 
the  method  of  His  working  is  undoubtedly  of  help  to  us 
in  our  studies,  for  it  clears  up  for  us  many  conceptions  which 
have  before  seemed  nebulous,  and  enables  us  to  speak  with 
certainty  where  before  we  were  merely  guessing.  Such  effort 
cannot  be  ill-directed,  for  the  further  we  press  inward  and 
upward  in  our  search  the  more  profound  becomes  our  senss 
of  His  infinity  and  His  glory.  His  power,  like  His  peace, 
passes  man's  understanding;  yet  to  try  to  comprehend  and 
to  realize  is  surely  beneficial  to  us,  since  it  deepens  our 
reverence  for  Him. 

This  diagram  is  of  course  in  no  sense  a  picture,  any 
more  than  a  table  of  altitudes  represents  a  chain  of  mighty 
snow-clad  mountains,  or  a  chart  of  light-vibrations  reveals 
the  glories  of  a  sunset.  We  can  never  hope  to  picture  the 
Logos  in  earth  }s  dull  pigments  or  within  the  cramping  limi- 
tations of  three-dimensional  space,  but  it  is  possible  to  indi- 
cate to  some  extent  the  relationship  existing  between  the 
Three  Persons  in  Whom  He  manifests. 

In  our  diagram  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
are  represented  as  already  descended  into  our  system  of  inter- 
penetrating worlds  and  as  manifesting  Themselves  in  the 
seventh,  sixth  and  fifth  worlds  respectively.  We  do  not  know 
in  what  Form  or  Manifestation  the  Logos  exists  outside  the 
limits  of  these  worlds.  All  that  can  be  said  with  certainty 
is  that  when  His  life  appears  in  the  highest  world  of  the 
solar  system  it  pours  down  in  three  mighty  streams,  giving 
rise  to  the  Triple  Spirit  of  the  Logos  in  manifestation. 
(A,  B  and  C  in  the  diagram.)  A  does  not  descend  below 


1991  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  level,  aiici  is  called  the  Father  in  Christian  philosophy. 
The  Second  Person  of  the  Holy  Trinity  is  called  into  being 
by  the  action  of  the  will  of  the  Father,  working  without 
intermediary.  Hence  the  Second  Person  is  spoken  of  as  only- 
begotten  (or,  more  exactly  in  the  sense  of  the  original  Greek, 
alone-born),  since  He  was  created  from  one  divine  Principle 
and  not  from  a  syzygy  or  pair,  and  so  this  emanation  differs 
from  all  other  and  later  processes  of  generation.  It  will  be 
noted  that  the  Second  Person  is  represented  as  dual,  and 
as  D  does  not  descend  below  the  level  of  the  sixth  world 
He  is  called  the  Son.  This  duality  has  always  been  clearly 
recognized  by  religions,  but  in  modern  Christianity  the  two 
poles  or  aspects  are  expressed  only  as  divinity  and  humanity. 

The  procession  or  emanation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (F)  was 
an  ancient  source  of  theological  controversy,  and  indeed  was 
put  forward  as  the  ostensible  reason  for  the  separation  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches.  In  a  very  real  sense  both 
the  disputing  parties  were  right.  Since  the  manifestation  of 
the  Father  takes  place  in  the  seventh  world,  and  that  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  the  fifth,  it  is  evident  that,  if  the  latter  comes 
forth  from  the  former,  it  can  do  so  only  by  passing  through 
the  intermediate  sixth  world,  in  which  is  the  manifestation 
of  the  Son.  It  is  not  that  the  Holy  Ghost  descends  from 
the  manifested  Person  of  the  Father  (A)  through  the  mani- 
fested Person  of  the  Son  (D)  (which  descent  would  be  repre- 
sented by  the  diagonal  line  connecting  A,  D  and  F) ;  such 
an  idea  would  indicate  a  confusion  of  the  functions  of  the 
separate  Persons  or  Aspects,  and  the  Greek  Church  was  right 
in  resisting  it.  The  truth  is  that  the  Holy  Ghost  descends 
from  C  in  the  seventh  world,  through  E  in  the  sixth,  to  be- 
come the  manifested  Holy  Spirit  F  in  the  fifth;  and  so  in 
this  sense  the  Roman  Church  was  right  in  inserting  the  word 
filioque. 

The  symbols  used  to  designate  the  Three  Persons — the  dot 
within  a  circle  for  the  First,  the  bar  dividing  a  circle  for 
the  Second,  and  a  cross  within  a  circle  for  the  Third — are 
of  extreme  antiquity. 

The  relationship  of  the  principles  in  man  is  shown  by  re- 
producing a  portion  of  Diagram  21  in  The  Science  of  the 
Sacraments,  and  the  reader  is  referred  to  that  book  for  a 


Whitsun-Day  199* 

detailed  explanation.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  diagram  that 
the  old  text  which  tells  us  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of 
God  is  wonderfully  and  beautifully  true — not,  as  was  ignor- 
antly  supposed,  of  the  body  or  outer  form  of  the  man,  but 
of  the  real  inner  man,  the  soul.  Just  as  Three  Aspects  of 
the  Divine  are  seen  upon  the  seventh  plane,  so  the 
Divine  Spark  of  the  spirit  in  man  is  seen  to  be  triple 
in  its  appearance  on  plane  five.  In  both  cases  the  second 
Aspect  is  able  to  descend  one  plane  lower,  and  to  clothe  it- 
self in  the  matter  of  that  world;  in  both  cases  the  Third 
Aspect  is  able  to  descend  two  planes  and  repeat  the  process. 
So  in  both  cases  there  is  a  Trinity  in  Unity,  separate  in  its 
manifestations,  yet  one  in  the  reality  behind.  Indeed,  incom- 
prehensible though  the  statement  may  be,  it  is  in  reality  true 
that  the  principles  in  man,  which  we  call  spirit,  intuition  and 
intelligence,  are  not  merely  correspondences,  not  merely  even 
reflections  or  rays  of  the  Three  Persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
but  are  somehow  themselves  in  very  tru^h  expressions  of  these 
glorious  Beings.  "In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being." 


200  The  Christian  Festivals 

The  Three  Persons  are  fundamentally  and  on  the 
highest  level  all  absolutely  co-equal  and  co-eternal; 
but  when  They  descend  into  manifestation  (as  in 
the  creation  of  a  solar  system)  it  may  be  said  that 
the  Third  Person  comes  down  further  into  matter 
than  the  others,  and  so  appears  to  be  nearer  to  us, 
and  in  that  sense  temporarily  lower.  The  First 
Person  remains  at  the  original  level;  the  Second 
steps  down  one  level  and  manifests  Himself  there; 
the  Third  descends  two  levels  to  the  plane  we  call 
the  spiritual,  and  manifests  Himself  in  the  highest 
stage  of  that  spiritual  plane.  Here  we  see  one  illus- 
tration of  the  fact  which  is  symbolized  by  the 
statement  that  the  Christ  has  two  natures — God 
and  Man,  because  He  exists  as  perfect  God  on  that 
higher  level,  and  yet  also  exists  one  stage  lower  in 
manifestation.  In  the  same  sense  the  Holy  Spirit 
has  three  stages,  one  above  the  other.  Yet  again 
the  diagram  illustrates  the  much-disputed  question 
of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  Both  the  contradictory  statements  are 
true,  for  lie  does  proceed  entirely  from  the  Father; 
but  He  proceeds  through  that  second  level  which  is 
especially  the  field  of  manifestation  of  the  Son,  and 
so  conies  both  from  the  Father  and  from  the  Son. 
In  Him  the  two  lines  meet — the  perpendicular  of 
the  triangle  and  its  hypothenuse;  so  both  the  state- 
ments are  true. 

He  was  the  first  to  act  in  the  making  of  the 
system,  and  so  it  is  said  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
brooded  over  the  face  of  the  waters  of  space.  He 
pours  His  life  into  them  and  creates  matter  as  we 
know  it.  He  is  still  manifesting  before  us  even 
now,  and  that  in  two  ways.  First,  He  is  still  within 


Whitsun-Day  201 

the  earth  making  new  elements;  the  last  that  we 
have  so  far  discovered  is  uranium,  but  He  is  si  ill 
making  new  and  heavier  elements.  He  manifests 
Himself  also  among  us  in  the  wondrous  force  that 
we  call  prana  or  vitality;  that  life  is  His  life;  so 
we  have  on  the  physical  plane  a  manifestation  of 
Him  in  what  are  called  the  vitality  globules.  (See 
Man  Visible  and  Invisible  and  The  Hidden  Side  of 
Things.)  It  is  matter  vivified  by  Him  that  is  used  by 
the  Second  Person  when  He  in  turn  dips  down  into 
matter  in  the  Second  great  Outpouring,  and  so  it  is 
said  mystically  that  Christ  takes  form  not  from  the 
Maria  or  seas  of  virgin  matter  only,  but  from  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  the  Virgin  Mary.  But  the  treat- 
ment of  that  matter  belongs  to  our  third  volume. 

The  downward  point  of  the  triangle  in  the  dia- 
gram indicates  the  lowest  point  of  the  descent  into 
matter,  inconceivably  high  though  even  that  must 
be  in  comparison  with  our  own  consciousness.  Thus 
this  manifestation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  in  that  sense 
the  Aspect  of  Divinity  which  is  nearest  to  us,  and 
consequently  through  Him  the  work  is  done.  It  is 
He  Whom  we  invoke  at  Confirmation  and  at  Ordina- 
tion; and  through  Him  come  all  blessing  and  sanc- 
tifying power,  whether  it  be  in  the  consecration  of 
churches,  of  holy  water,  or  of  the  congregation.  As 
the  nearest  point  of  the  manifestation  of  Deity  (the 
expression  is  terribly  materialistic,  and  yet  perhaps 
less  misleading  than  any  other)  He  is  the  first  with 
which  man  can  be  united  when  he  has  risen  to  be 
something  more  than  man. 

In  the  course  of  his  evolution  man  has  now  reached 
what  is  called  the  nivritti  marga,  the  path  of  return, 
and  so  he  is  drawing  himself  steadily  upwards  to- 


202  The  Christian  Festivals 

wards  God  from  Whom  he  came — towards  the  Logos 
of  Whom  he  is  a  part.  When  he  has  reached  Adept- 
ship  he  may  be  said  to  pass  away  from  earth  to  the 
heavenly  regions,  as  symbolized  by  the  Ascension; 
and  having  thus  drawn  away  from  ordinary  manhood 
and  become  a  superman,  he  also  becomes  one  with 
God — at  first  with  that  lowest  manifestation  of  Him, 
which  yet  is  so  supremely  high — with  God  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  having  become  one  with  that  mighty 
manifestation  he  immediately  pours  himself  down 
upon  his  friends  and  pupils  in  tongues  as  of  fire.  It 
is  part  of  the  Asekha  Initiation  to  become  one  with 
the  Logos  at  that  level.  Later  on  he  rises  to  another 
stage  and  becomes  one  with  the  Christ  Aspect.  But 
even  so  we  must  remember  that  it  is  only  within 
this  set  of  planes,  whereas  the  Logos  Himself  in  His 
splendour  is  outside  time  and  space;  and  presently 
we  must  become  one  with  Him  there  also ;  so  there 
is  an  infinity  of  evolution  still  before  us. 

The  altar-frontal  and  all  the  vestments  on  Whit- 
sun-day  are  red,  by  order  of  the  Universal  Church; 
and  it  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  so  in  honour  of 
the  Fire  which  in  the  gospel  story  came  down  and 
rested  on  the  heads  of  the  apostles.  Fire  is  the 
symbol  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  He  is  constantly 
described  as  the  Breath  of  God,  the  Fire  of  Love, 
because  He  is  that  tremendous  power  which  is  best 
expressed  in  our  words  as  Fire  or  Light.  The 
ecclesiastical  red,  when  it  is  the  right  tint,  stands 
for  courage,  bravery  and  power,  and  so  most  truly 
images  for  us  His  most  prominent  characteristic. 
This  has  been  somewhat  obscured  by  an  unsatisfac- 
tory translation  of  His  principal  title,  ''The  Para- 
clete/' It  has  been  the  custom  to  render  this  by 


Whitsun-Day  203 

the  English  word  Comforter,  thus  relegating  the 
chief  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  times  of  sorrow 
and  suffering.  The  derivation  of  the  word  is  from 
the  verb  parakaleo,  which  means  to  cheer  on,  to 
encourage;  so  the  best  English  equivalent  of  the 
Greek  word  Parakletos  is  the  Encourager  or 
Strengthener.  And  this  is  precisely  the  true  func- 
tion of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  with  regard  to  man; 
poured  upon  us  at  Confirmation,  He  dwells  ever 
within  our  hearts  as  a  constant  stimulus  in  the 
direction  of  all  that  is  good,  ever  ready  to  hearten 
and  to  fortify  us  whenever  we  call  upon  His  latent 
power.  The  Church  of  England  commemorates  Him 
on  this  one  festival  only;  but  we  have  added  six 
other  days  for  special  devotion  to  Him — the  Sunday 
before  Advent,  the  three  Sundays  before  Lent,  and 
two  of  the  Sundays  after  Trinity. 

In  certain  parts  of  the  Church  the  Ascension  and 
the  festival  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  celebrated  on 
the  same  day,  showing  that  it  was  recognized  that 
the  union  of  the  Adept  with  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
simultaneous  with  his  attainment  of  the  higher 
spheres,  even  though  the  outpouring  with  which  he 
is  thereby  enabled  to  baptize  his  followers  comes 
upon  them  a  few  days  later. 


CHAPTEE  XI 
TRINITY  SUNDAY 

The  celebration  on  this  day  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Most  Holy  Trinity  fitly  and  appropriately  con- 
cludes this  first  half  of  the  Christian  Year,  and  at 
the  same  time  leads  us  on  into  the  second.  Actually 
it  is  the  octave  of  Whitsun-day,  and  a  Roman 
authority  remarks:  "Since  it  was  after  the  first 
great  Pentecost  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
proclaimed  to  the  world,  the  feast  becomingly  fol- 
lows that  of  Pentecost."  The  Church  of  Rome 
in  one  way  gives  less  importance  to  the  day  than 
we,  for  she  labels  all  the  Sundays  through  the  rest 
of  the  ecclesiastical  year  up  to  Advent  as  Sundays 
after  Pentecost  (of  which  Trinity  Sunday  is  the 
first),  whereas  we  follow  the  practice  of  the  Church 
of  England  in  calling  them  Sundays  after  Trinity. 

It  is  only  very  lately  that  the  transcendent  impor- 
tance of  this  day  has  been  recognized  by  our  Roman 
brethren.  In  the  early  Church  no  special  Office  or 
day  was  assigned  to  the  Holy  Trinity,  as  all  days 
alike  were  considered  to  be  devoted  to  such  service. 
An  Office  of  the  Holy  Trinity  was  composed  about 
the  year  910  by  Bishop  Stephen  of  Liege,  and  we 
find  it  recorded  that  it  was  in  some  places  used  on 
this  day.  Pope  Alexander  II  seems  in  1061  to  have 
refused  a  request  that  he  should  decree  a  universal 
feast  in  honour  of  the  Trinity,. as  it  was  already  daily 
celebrated  in  the  constant  recitation  of  the  Gloria 
Patri.  It  was  not  until  1316  that  Pope  John  XXII 
ordered  the  entire  Church  to  observe  the  present 

204 


Trinity  Sunday  205 

festival,  and  even  then  he  made  it  only  what  is  called 
a  double  of  the  second  class,  which  it  remained  until 
in  our  own  day  Pope  Pius  X  raised  it  to  primary 
dignity  on  July  24,  1911. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been  variously 
formulated  and  sadly  misunderstood,  and  those  who 
misunderstand  it  frequently  stigmatize  it  as  incom- 
prehensible and  incredible;  yet  it  represents  a  great 
and  fundamental  truth.  Here  is  a  statement  of  it 
culled  from  the  pages  of  The  Catholic  Encyclopedia: 
"The  Trinity  is  the  term  employed  to  signify  the 
central  doctrine  of  the  Christian  religion — the  truth 
that  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  there  are  Three 
Persons,  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit, 
these  Three  Persons  being  truly  distinct  one  from 
another.  Thus,  in  the  words  of  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  God ;  and  yet  there  are  not  three  gods, 
but  one  God.  In  this  Trinity  of  Persons  the  Son 
is  begotten  of  the  Father  by  an  eternal  generation, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  by  an  eternal  proces- 
sion from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  Yet,  notwith- 
standing this  difference  as  to  origin,  the  Persons  are 
co-eternal  and  co-equal;  all  alike  are  uncreated  and 
omnipotent. " 

There  is  no  direct  statement  of  this  doctrine  in 
the  scripture;  for  it  seems  to  be  universally  agreed 
among  commentators  that  the  passage  from  I  John 
v,  7 :  ' '  For  there  are  three  that  bear  record  in 
heaven,  the  Father,  the  Word  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  these  three  are  one,'7  is  a  late  interpolation. 
Late  or  early,  it  states  a  profound  truth,  but  we 
can  hardly  adduce  it  as  evidence.  The  stories  of  the 
Baptism  and  the  Transfiguration  of  our  Lord  have 


206  The  Christian  Festivals 

been  taken  to  include  the  manifestation  of  the  Three 
Persons  simultaneously ;  but,  though  when  we  already 
know  the  doctrine  we  can  weave  it  in  deftly  and 
appropriately  as  an  explanation,  it  would  perhaps 
be  a  straining  of  the  words  to  deduce  the  doctrine 
from  the  narrative.  The  command  to  go  and  bap- 
tize all  nations  in  the  Name  of  the  Father  and  of 
the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  clearest  direct 
reference,  for  the  mention  of  the  Three  Persons  in 
this  manner  implies  Their  equality,  while  the  use  of 
the  word  "Name"  instead  of  "Names"  shows  that 
all  Three  are  One  God. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  thought  of  the 
Trinity  has  appeared  in  some  form  or  other  in  all 
the  great  religions  of  the  world,  though  the  Aspects 
or  Persons  are  not  always  arranged  in  the  same 
order.  In  Hinduism  it  is  taught  that  there  is  one 
Absolute  Unmanifested  without  qualities,  but  that 
the  Manifested  Supreme  Lord  with  qualities  always 
shows  Himself  as  a  Trinity.  Its  Persons  are  called 
Brahma,  Vishnu,  Shiva — sometimes  denned  as  the 
Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer  or 
Liberator,  and  sometimes  as  Existence,  Consciousness 
and  Bliss;  and  They  are  said  to  be  represented  in 
the  human  spirit  by  Will,  Cognition  and  Activity. 
There  is  no  feminine  principle  here — nothing 
directly  representing  matter;  but  each  of  these  Per- 
sons has  a  slialdi  or  power  which  is  practically  His 
feminine  aspect;  and  there  is  also  the  conception,  as 
I  have  stated,  of  Mulaprakriti,  the  primitive  mother- 
matter,  not  part  of  the  Trinity,  but  very  intimately 
connected  with  it,  just  as  is  the  Blessed  Virgin  in 
our  Christian  system.  Again,  in  the  esotericism  of  the 
Vedantins,  Daiviprakriti,  the  Light  manifested 


Trinity  Sunday  207 

through  Ishvara,  the  Logos,  is  at  one  and  the  same 
time  the  Mother  and  also  the  Daughter  of  the 
Logos. 

In  the  Zoroastrian  religion — to  add  a  few  details 
not  mentioned  before — the  presentation  is  given  as 
Existence,  Wisdom  and  Bliss,  and  the  names  are 
Ahuramazda,  Asha  and  Vohumano.  The  .first  title, 
Ahurarnazda  (sometimes  contracted  to  Ormuzd)  is 
often  used  for  the  whole,  just  as  is  the  Christian 
word  Father.  Ahura  is  interpreted  as  ''He  Who 
is,"  while  Maz  means  "great,"  and  Da  "to  know." 
Ahura  is  often  taken  as  the  lifegiver,  and  Mazda 
as  the  great  knower  or  thinker,  and  the  scriptures 
state  that  Ahura  is  threefold  before  all  others.  In 
this  system  the  twin  forces  of  involution  and  evolu- 
tion are  named  Spenta-Angra.  Ahuramazda,  Mithra 
and  Ahriman  also  appear  as  a  Trinity;  but  in  other 
passages  Ahriman  is  the  personification  of  evil.  Pos- 
sibly in  the  Trinity  he  may  be  the  representative  of 
matter,  which  often  comes  to  be  regarded  as  evil; 
if  this  be  the  case  we  have  here  one  of  the  Trinities 
of  Father,  Mother  and  Son,  like  that  of  Osiris,  Isis 
and  Horus  in  ancient  Egypt,  or  of  Odin,  Freya  and 
Thor  among  the  Scandinavians. 

In  the  Kabala  of  the  Jews  we  find  a  similar  pre- 
sentation. Ainsoph  the  One  manifests  as  Kether  the 
Crown,  the  Bliss  Aspect  of  Deity,  and  the  root  of 
the  will  in  man;  also  as  Binah,  Intelligence,  the 
Consciousness  Aspect,  the  root  of  Cognition  in  man; 
and  as  Chokma,  the  Universal  Mind,  the  Existence 
Aspect,  the  root  of  Activity  in  man.  The  very  name 
of  God  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  was  the  scrip- 
ture of  the  Jews,  implies  the  Trinity.  The  first 
verse  of  the  bible  begins:  "In  the  beginning  God 


208  The  Christian  Festivals 

created  the  heaven  and  the  earth."  The  word  used 
for  God  is  Elohim,  and  that  word  is  plural.  In 
Hebrew,  as  in  many  other  ancient  languages,  there 
are  three  numbers,  singular,  dual  and  plural;  and 
it  is  significant  that  that  word  is  not  singular  and 
not  dual,  but  plural;  therefore  they  recognized  at 
least  a  threefold  God.  Rabbi  Simeon  ben  Jochai 
writes:  "In  Elohim  are  three  degrees,  and  each 
degree  by  itself  alone;  and  yet  notwithstanding  they 
are  all  one,  and  joined  together  in  One,  and  can- 
not be  divided  from  each  other."  There  we  have 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  many  centuries  before 
Christ.  The  Assyrians  and  Phoanicians  believed  in 
a  Trinity;  Anu,  Ea  and  Bel  were  their  names.  Lao- 
Tse,  the  great  Chinese  philosopher,  taught  that 
Tao,  the  eternal  reason,  produced  One;  One  pro- 
duced Two;  Two  produced  Three,  and  the  Three 
produced  all  things.  Orpheus,  the  great  Greek 
Teacher,  told  his  disciples  that  all  things  were  made 
by  One  Godhea4  in  three  Names,  and  that  this  God 
is  all.  Philo  Judaeus  also  constantly  speaks  of  God 
as  a  Trinity  in  Unity. 

The  ancient  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  recognized  a 
three-fold  Deity — Three  Persons  with  one  heart  and 
one  will.  The  Druids  worshipped  a  Triple  God. 
Taulac,  Fan,  and  Mollac.  I  have  already  mentioned 
that  the  Scandinavians  had  a  different  kind  of 
Trinity,  the  Father,  Mother  and  Son,  Odin,  Freya, 
and  Thor,  corresponding  to  Osiris,  Isis,  and  Horus 
in  Egypt.  It  has  been  supposed  that  the  Christian 
teaching  was  derived  in  that  respect  from  that  of 
Egypt,  because  in  some  of  the  early  Christian  docu- 
ments the  function  assigned  to  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
that  of  the  divine  Mother.  For  example,  in  the 


Trinity  Sunday  209 

apocryphal  gospel  of  the  Hebrews  we  find  that 
Christ  is  made  to  speak  of  "My  Mother  the  Holy 
Spirit."  The  Ophites  represented  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  the  first  woman,  the  mother  of  all  living.  And 
it  is  on  record  that  in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  one 
Alcibides  brought  to  Rome  a  manuscript  in  which 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  described  as  feminine. 

In  Northern  Buddhism  we  hear  of  the  Trinity  of 
Amitabha,  Avalokiteshvara,  and  Manjushri.  In 
Southern  Buddhism  the  idea  of  a  Deity  has  entirely 
disappeared,  but  a  sort  of  echo  or  reflection  of  it 
persists  in  the  constant  mention  of  Buddha,  Dharma, 
Sangha. 

The  fact  is  that  Manifestation  is  always  a  trip- 
licity.  God  shows  Himself  in  three  aspects,  in  three 
fundamental  modes,  as  three  essential  qualities,  as 
discharging  three  primary  functions.  So  difficult  is 
it  to  explain  these  that  the  very  words  which  I  have 
just  used  are  heretical  according  to  one  of  the 
Councils  of  the  Church,  for  it  was  decided  that  it 
was  not  right  to  say  that  the  Three  Persons  of  the 
Trinity  are  merely  Three  Aspects.  Yet  we  must  use 
human  words  when  we  are  speaking  of  these  divine 
mysteries,  and  to  speak  of  them  as  Aspects  is  per- 
haps as  near  the  fact  as  we  can  come.  We  can 
understand  in  a  very  much  smaller  way  how  a  man 
may  have  different  aspects.  The  same  man  may  be 
husband,  father,  master  in  relation  to  his  wife,  his 
children,  his  servants,  and  yet  he  is  one  and  the 
same  man.  In  somewhat  the  same  way  as  that,  God 
is  the  Creator,  the  Preserver  and  the  Liberator,  and 
yet  always  one  and  the  same  God.  Father  of  our 
spirits,  Protector  of  our  lives,  Source  of  our  activi- 
ties, and  yet  our  innermost  Self;  a  mystery,  but 


210  The  Christian  Festivals 

nevertheless  an  eternal  truth.  Those  who  develop 
clairvoyant  faculty  cannot  indeed  see  God,  for  no 
man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  in  His  fullness;  but 
they  can  see  three  streams  of  force  coming  down 
from  above,  and  they  can  follow  the  action  of  these 
streams;  so  that  if  they  were  not  taught  this  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  they  would  have  to  assume  it, 
or  something  very  like  it,  to  account  for  what  they 
unquestionably  see. 

We  may  know  something  of  God  by  His  reflection 
in  man,  for  we  remember  that  God  made  man  in 
His  own  image.  That  does  not  mean,  as  some  have 
thought,  that  the  physical  body  of  man  bears  re- 
semblance to  some  supposed  body  of  God ;  but  it  does 
mean  that  man — not  his  body,  but  himself,  the  spirit, 
the  soul — is  in  the  likeness  of  God,  threefold  in 
aspect  and  in  action,  even  as  God  is  threefold.  It 
will  be  seen  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  in  our 
diagram  to  indicate  this. 

The  finest  sermon  that  has  ever  been  written  on 
this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  Athanasian  Creed. 
That  is  a  document  given  to  us  alike  in  the  prayer- 
books  of  the  Roman  Church  and  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  and  if  we  read  it  and  study  it  carefully 
we  shall  see  that  it  is  beautifully  and  literally  true 
in  most  of  its  statements.  Many  people  have  con- 
demned it,  but  only  because  they  did  not  under- 
stand it.  That  is  very  often  the  secret  of  the  rabid 
condemnation  and  criticism  which  is  so  common  in 
the  world;  we  do  not  understand,  and  so  we  con- 
demn, which  is  silly.  Especially  ought  we  to  be 
careful  of  anything  like  rash  condemnation  when 
we  are  dealing  with  these  higher  matters  which 
none  can  fully  comprehend. 


$>rinity  Sunday  211 

I  readily  admit  that  this  dogma  is  too  high  for 
us  to  grasp,  because  it  belongs  to  what  we  call  the 
higher  planes.  It  needs  the  full  divine  conscious- 
ness to  understand  that  which  is  divine.  Everyone 
of  us  has  that  divine  consciousness,  but  it  is  as  yet 
but  very  partially  unfolded.  The  whole  of  the  path 
which  lies  before  us  is  the  path  of  the  unfolding  of 
the  divine  within  ourselves,  and  when  that  develop- 
ment is  ended  we  shall  know  even  as  now  we  are 
known ;  but  until  that  time  it  is  inevitable  that,  when 
we  deal  with  higher  levels  like  this,  all  that  we  say 
must  be  imperfect,  must  be  inaccurate,  because  our 
understanding  of  those  higher  levels  is  as  yet  utterly 
insufficient.  But  at  least  we  can  see  something  of 
what  is  meant.  The  facts  are  to  some  extent  veri- 
fiable. We  do  see  that  in  the  world  we  have  force 
(spirit,  if  we  like  to  call  it  so),  matter  and 
phenomena.  Think  of  a  jewel  for  example.  There 
is  in  it  a  force  which  has  made  the  matter  take  that 
particular  type  of  form;  there  is  the  matter  which 
has  been  moulded  by  the  force,  and  there  is  the 
stone,  the  phenomenon,  the  result  of  the  moulding 
of  the  matter.  We  find  this  everywhere.  If  we 
examine  the  qualities  of  matter,  we  shall  find  that 
they  are  three — inertia,  motion,  and  rhythm — three 
qualities  everywhere  in  everything.  All  manifesta- 
tion takes  that  form — the  active,  the  passive,  and  the 
result  of  their  interaction;  the  Father,  the  Mother, 
and  the  Word  or  expression. 

In  the  Christian  Trinity  we  have  not  that  group 
of  Father,  Mother,  and  Son;  the  Father  and  Mother 
are  merged  together  in  the  first  Person  of  the  Trinity. 
("Father-Mother  spin  a  web,"  as  another  scripture 
tells  us.)  The  Substance  there  is  combined  with, 


212  The  Christian  Festivals 

merged  in  the  Father;  the  Offspring,  the  Word  or 
Expression,  is  called  the  Son;  while  the  Potency 
which  proceeds  from  the  former  through  the  latter, 
and  denotes  Deity  in  the  dynamic  or  active  (as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  static  or  passive)  mode  is  called 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  makes  the  Third  Person,  and 
so  it  is  sometimes  called  the  Light  of  the  Logos,  or 
the  Arm  of  the  Lord. 

When  we  speak  of  God  our  meaning  is  perhaps 
a  little  more  precise  than  that  of  the  ordinary  Chris- 
tian. He  holds  a  belief  in  a  God  Who  is  omni- 
present, omniscient,  Who  is  far  away  beyond  all 
possible  spheres,  and  includes  all  within  Himself, 
and  yet  he  often  regards  that  God  from  a  very 
limited  and  personal  point  of  view.  The  Jews  (and 
influenced  by  them,  most  unfortunately,  the  early 
Christians)  regarded  Him  as  a  cruel  God,  as  an 
angry  and  jealous  God.  We  are  gradually  rising 
out  of  all  this,  but  even  yet  people  hold  Him  to  be 
strangely  limited,  and  regard  Him  as  being  able  to 
break  His  own  laws  in  answer  to  their  request.  Also 
they  regard  Him  as  not  knowing  what  is  best  for 
them  unless  they  explain  it  to  Him;  they  seem  to 
think  He  needs  to  have  His  attention  attracted  to 
the  fact  that  so-and-so  is  in  ill-health  and  they  want 
him  to  get  well;  they  think  that  their  particular 
and  private  sins  need  to  be  forgiven.  They  are  con- 
stantly bringing  all  sorts  of  little  personal  and  pri- 
vate matters  to  His  attention,  and  telling  Him  what 
to  do  about  them.  That  comes  from  the  fact  that 
they  are  confounding  several  quite  different  ideas,  so 
that  the  conception  of  God  in  the  mind  of  the 
average  uneducated  Christian  is  a  bundle  of  nebulous 
contradictions. 


Trinity  Sunday  ?A3 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  mighty  Solar 
Logos  represents  to  us  all  that  we  mean  by  the  title 
God.  Out  of  Himself  He  has  called  this  wondrous 
system  into  being.  Through  it  He  manifests  Him- 
self in  such  matter  as  we  can  see,  yet  at  the  same 
time  He  exists  above  it  and  outside  it.  At  what 
stupendous  elevation  His  full  consciousness  abides 
we  know  not,  nor  can  we  know  its  true  nature  as  it 
shows  itself  there.  But  when  He  puts  Himself 
down  into  such  conditions  as  are  within  our  reach, 
His  manifestation  is  ever  threefold,  and  that  is  why 
all  religions  image  Him  as  a  Trinity.  Three,  yet 
fundamentally  One;  Three  Persons,  yet  one  God 
showing  Himself  in  those  three  Aspects.  Three  to 
us,  looking  at  Them  from  below,  because  Their  func- 
tions are  different;  one  to  Him,  because  He  knows 
Them  to  be  but  facets  of  Himself.  So  the  Trinity 
with  which  we  are  concerning  ourselves  is  the 
Trinity  of  the  Solar  Logos. 

No  words  that  we  can  use  can  accurately  repre- 
sent the  relation  one  to  another  of  these  Aspects  or 
Persons.  Both  those  words  are  defective  in  expres- 
sion. Person  is  derived  from  the  Latin  persona^ 
from  sona,  sound,  and  per,  through — the  mask 
through  which  the  sound  passes.  It  was  the  mask 
worn  by  the  Roman  actor;  instead  of  having  himself 
painted  and  prepared  to  represent  a  particular  char- 
acter, the  actor  in  Roman  plays  just  fitted  a  mask 
over  his  face.  Often  the  same  man  had  to  take 
several  parts  in  the  one  play,  and  to  represent  those 
different  characters  he  would  put  on  a  mask  appro- 
priate to  each  and  change  his  clothes  to  correspond. 
That  mask  was  called  the  persona;  and  thus  the 
word  came  to  mean  the  character  he  was  represent- 


214  The  Christian  Festivals 

ing  at  the  time.  So  we  speak  of  the  Trinity  as 
being  three  Persons;  but  neither  the  word  Person 
nor  Aspect  is  wholly  satisfactory.  We  cannot  expect 
to  understand  exactly  so  great  a  mystery,  but  we 
can  see  quite  enough  to  show  that  we  have  here  not 
a  ridiculous  idea,  but  a  great  and  basic  truth;  and 
as  we  understand  something  of  the  meaning  of  the 
Trinity,  above  and  below  (in  the  unknown  and  un- 
seen worlds,  and  in  the  worlds  down  here  which  we 
think  we  know)  what  was  before  merely  a  hard  un- 
intelligible dogma  becomes  a  living  and  most  illumin- 
ative truth.  Only  by  the  existence  of  the  Trinity 
in  man  is  human  evolution  intelligible,  for  we  see 
how  man  evolves  first  the  life  of  the  intellect,  and 
then  the  life  of  the  Christ.  On  that  fact  mysticism 
is  based,  and  our  sure  hope  that  we  shall  know  God. 
Thus  have  the  Saints  taught,  and  as  we  tread  the 
Path  they  show,  we  find  that  their  testimony  is 
true. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CORPUS  CHEISTI 

Corpus  Christi  means  the  body  of  Christ,  and  this 
is  the  day  set  apart  for  the  especial  celebration  of 
the  Blessed  Sacrament  of  the  Holy  Eucharist — a 
day  upon  which  we  express  our  gratitude  to  our  dear 
Lord  for  providing  us  with  this  wondrous  means  of 
grace.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Sacrament  was 
founded  on  Maundy  Thursday;  but  as  that  day 
comes  in  the  midst  of  Holy  Week,  when  the  Church 
is  occupied  in  following  the  last  events  of  her  gospel 
drama  to  its  culmination  in  the  Crucifixion  and 
Resurrection,  it  seems  to  have  been  felt  in  the 
Middle  Ages  that  due  justice  could  not  then  be  done 
to  a  feast  so  great  and  glorious  as  that  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  should  be.  They  have  in  the 
Roman  Church  a  system  of  the  transference  of  fes- 
tivals when  they  fall  inconveniently ;  if,  for  example, 
some  Saint's  Day  should  come  within  the  octave 
of  Easter,  it  would  be  altogether  ignored  at  the 
time,  but  they  would  keep  it  on  the  first  free  day 
after  the  Easter  festivities  were  over.  It  is  not 
exactly  that  which  is  done  in  the  case  of  Maundy 
Thursday,  for  that  is  duly  kept  by  a  high  festal 
celebration  in  the  morning,  though  it  is  not  possible 
to  give  it  the  octave  which  is  assuredly  its  due.  But 
as  soon  as  that  part  of  the  Church's  year  which  is 
symbolical  of  the  course  of  Initiation  is  over,  and 
we  are  free  to  devote  our  thought  to  other  matters 
without  breaking  its  sequence,  the  question  of  the 
postponed  full  celebration  of  the  founding  of  the 

215 


216  The  Christian  Festivals 

most  holy  Sacrament  is  taken  up  again,  and  the  first 
Thursday  after  Trinity  Sunday  is  devoted  to  it. 
We  in  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  are  enthusias- 
tically in  favour  of  any  observance  which  will  help 
to  bring  home  to  our  people  the  glory,  the  dignity 
and  the  usefulness  of  this  greatest  of  the  sacraments, 
so  we  most  gladly  keep  this  day  in  addition  to 
Maundy  Thursday. 

I  suppose  that  most  Christians  look  upon  the  Holy 
Eucharist  as  an  act  of  worship  and  as  a  means  of 
obtaining  benefit.  It  is  both  of  these,  but  it  is  also 
much  more ;  and  I  think  that  in  celebrating  this  great 
festival  in  its  honour  we  should  try  to  understand 
what  it  is,  what  it  means  to  us,  what  it  can  do  for 
us,  and  what  we  can  do  by  its  means.  It  is: 

1.  A  symbol  to  remind  us  of  the  descent  of  the 
Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  into  matter, 
and  also  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  World-Teacher. 

2.  A  ready   and   beautiful   means   of   thanks   and 
worship. 

3.  A  channel  of  help  and  stimulus  for  those  who 
are   present,   more   especially  if   they   communicate. 

4.  An  opportunity  of  work  for  God  and  for  His 
world. 

This  last  of  its  aspects  is  but  little  understood,  so 
I  wish  especially  to  emphasize  it.  There  has  been 
a  vast  amount  of  amazingly  acrid  controversy  with 
regard  to  this  great  and  wonderful  subject.  I  sup- 
pose, perhaps,  as  much  theological  hatred  has 
centred  round  the  various  opinions  as  to  what  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  really  is  as  about  any  subject 
in  the  whole  range  of  theology,  and  that  is  saying 
a  good  deal.  There  has  been  a  vast  amount  of 


Corpus  Chris ti  217 

argument  as  to  what  is  meant  by  the  Real  Presence 
of  the  Christ,  what  is  meant  by  the  great  doctrine 
of  Transubstantiatlon,  and  whether  that  or  the  alter- 
native of  Consubstantiation  is  to  be  taken  as  the 
true  belief.  It  is  difficult  for  us  in  these  days  to 
understand  why  there  should  have  been  such  inten- 
sity of  feeling  about  it.  There  may  well  be  dif- 
ferent opinions,  but  why  because  of  those  opinions 
men  should  hate,  anathematize  and  persecute  one 
another,  is  incomprehensible  and  amazing;  but  it 
has  been  so  all  through  the  history  of  the  Church. 
It  is  most  unfortunate;  but  at  least  we  may  hope 
that  gradually  the  world  is  evolving,  and  that  we 
are  now  a  little  more  liberal,  a  little  more  ready 
to  allow  that  truth  is  a  many-sided  thing,  that  it 
has  many  facets,  and  that  it  is  rarely  that  any  one 
man  grasps  the  whole  of  the  truth  upon  any  of 
these  great  and  involved  esoteric  subjects. 

For  those  who  possess  the  inner  sight — the  sight 
which  sees  a  little  more  than  the  physical  eyes  can 
see — there  is  no  question  as  to  the  fact  of  Transub- 
stantiation;  what  it  means  at  levels  higher  than  any 
that  we  can  see  is  still  unknown  to  us;  but  what  it 
is  that  happens,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  see  it,  is 
clear  and  unmistakable. 

I  think  we  might  save  ourselves  a  certain  amount 
of  trouble  and  heart-burning  if  we  realized  exactly 
what  the  words  mean  with  which  we  are  dealing. 
Transubstantiation  means  the  passing  of  the  sub- 
stance into  some  other  condition  altogether.  Trans 
signifies  across.  It  therefore  means  a  change  of 
substance,  but  then  what  is  substance?  That,  I 
think,  is  where  there  has  been  so  serious  a  mistake. 
There  is  the  bread;  there  is  the  wine  and  the  water. 


21$  The  Christian  Festivals 

These  are  placed  upon  the  altar,  and  people  think 
of  them  as  substance,  because  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  using  the  word  substance  to  indicate  material,  or 
something  like  that;  but  that  is  not  the  original 
signification  of  the  word  at  all,  nor  was  it  the  mean- 
ing in  the  mind  of  those  Fathers  of  the  Church  who 
many  centuries  ago  argued  so  vigorously  about  these 
things.  If  we  think  of  sub  and  stems,  the  two  Latin 
words  from  which  our  word  comes,  we  shall  see 
that  it  means  "that  which  stands  underneath  or  be- 
hind anything" — that  is  to  say,  the  reality  of  the 
thing.  It  especially  is  not  the  outward  appearance 
or  material  of  the  thing;  it  is  the  reality  of  it. 

So  the  Church  tells  us  that  in  regard  to  this  sacra- 
ment we  have  to  consider  what  is  called  the  sub- 
stance and  what  are  called  the  accidents.  The  acci- 
dents are  the  outer  forms  taken — the  bread,  in  this 
case,  and  the  wine;  the  substance  is  the  reality  that 
lies  behind  those  things. 

Those  of  us  who  have  been  studying  the  science 
of  the  inner  life  are  quite  aware  of  the  fact  that 
every  object  here  on  the  physical  plane  has  counter- 
parts in  subtler  forms  of  matter.  Students  have 
made  certain  divisions  of  that  matter;  they  speak 
of  the  next  type  of  matter  above  the  physical 
by  the  name  of  astral  or  starry,  because  it  is  gener- 
ally bright  or  shining  in  appearance.  The  next 
above  that  is  the  mental,  because  it  is  of  that 
type  that  the  mind  in  man  is  made.  I  do  not, 
of  course,  mean  the  brain;  I  mean  the  mind,  because 
that  mind  also  is  material,  although  people  generally 
are  quite  vague  about  such  things.  Those  who 
really  study  this  inner  side  of  nature  come  to  see 
clearly  a  great  many  things  which  are  generally 


Corpus  Christi  219 

left  vague  in  men's  thought,  and  among  others  they 
see  that  the  mind  of  man  is  definitely  not  the  man 
himself,  but  an  instrument  which  the  man  uses.  It 
is  a  material  instrument,  although  the  matter  of 
which  it  is  built  is  much  finer  than  that  with  which 
we  generally  meet  down  hei;.  Every  physical 
object  has  a  counterpart  in  the  astral  world,  and 
also  in  the  mental  world  and  in  other  worlds  above 
that,  reaching  away  up  to  the  Divinity  Who  per- 
meates all — indeed,  Who  is  all,  for  there  is  nothing 
which  is  not  God  in  some  form  or  other.  The  very 
matter  (the  dead  matter  as  some  call  it)  which  sur- 
rounds us  is  a  manifestation  of  God,  just  as  much 
as  we  ourselves  are,  only  in  a  different  way,  and  at 
a  different  level. 

We  may  reasonably  think  of  that  which  stands 
behind  the  bread  and  the  wine — their  counterpart 
on  higher  levels — as  the  substance,  the  reality  of 
the  thing.  If  one  who  possesses  the  inner  sight  looks 
at  a  piece  of  bread  or  the  wine  in  a  cup,  he  sees 
behind  it  its  counterpart  in  higher  matter,  which 
is  called  the  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine.  It 
has  always  been  held  by  the  Church  that  at  the 
moment  of  the  consecration  there  comes  a  great 
change  over  the  bread  and  the  wine,  and  yet  we  see 
them  there  before  us  obviously  the  same  as  before. 
The  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  as  it  is  ordinarily 
taught  in  the  Roman  Church  implies,  I  think,  so 
far  as  I  am  able  to  understand  it,  that  after  the 
consecration  the  appearance  of  the  bread  and  wine 
is  an  illusion.  That  is  to  say,  our  physical  eyes  see 
bread  and  wine,  but  in  reality  those  things  are  no 
longer  bread  and  wine.  That  is  true  in  one  sense, 
but  not  quite  in  that  way.  It  is  true  that  the 


The  Christian  Festivals 

reality  behind  that  bread,  that  which  made  it  bread, 
and  distinguished  it  from  any  other  edible,  is 
changed;  but  the  physical  manifestation  is  not 
changed,  and  is  exactly  what  it  was  before.  There- 
fore we  are  not  under  an  illusion  when  we  look  at 
that  piece  of  bread,  and  say:  "That  is  still  bread." 
Of  course  it  is,  on  the  physical  plane;  but  the  other 
side  of  it,  the  counterparts  (and  those,  remember, 
are  the  substance  which  really  makes  it  bread)  have 
been  changed. 

Let  me  describe  what  a  clairvoyant  sees  when  he 
watches  the  consecration  of  the  Host.  It  was  that 
very  thing  (many  years  ago  now)  which  first 
attracted  my  attention  to  this  side  of  the  sacramental 
service.  Having  myself,  after  many  years  of  ex- 
ceedingly hard  work,  succeeded  in  developing  these 
higher  senses  of  which  I  have  spoken,  I  went  to 
church  (which  I  had  not  done  for  many  years,  hav- 
ing been  far  away  from  all  such  things  in  foreign 
lands,  and  engaged  in  this  other  inner  work),  and 
being  now  able  to  see,  I  at  once  perceived  what  I 
had  never  seen  before,  although  I  had  felt  it  some- 
times; and  that  was  the  real  change  which  does  take 
place.  There  at  one  moment  lies  the  wafer,  with  a 
connection  running  up  behind  it,  up  into  the  very 
Deity  Himself,  far  up  beyond  anything  that  clair- 
voyance can  see;  but  it  is  the  line,  the  substance,  of 
ordinary  bread.  There  is  a  certain  line  or  set  of 
lines  (we  might  perhaps  image  them  as  wires),  a  set 
of  lines  of  communication  going  up  through  the 
higher  planes  which  is  identifiable  as  that  belonging 
to  bread.  The  priest  says  over  that  wafer  the  word 
of  power:  ''This  is  My  Body."  The  physical  wafer 
remains  there  unchanged,  but  the  line  of  connection 


Corpus  Christi  221 

behind  is  changed;  in  a  moment  that  bundle  of 
wires  is  swept  to  one  side,  and  its  place  is  taken  by 
a  line  of  living  fire  coming  down  from  the  Christ 
Himself.  And  so  that  which  was  before  a  manifes- 
tation on  the  physical  plane  of  the  line  of  communi- 
cation which  makes  and  means  bread,  is  now  a  direct 
manifestation  and  vehicle  of  the  Christ  Himself.  A 
line  of  living  fire  (which  has  been  well  described  as 
looking  like  a  flash  of  lightning  standing  still)  con- 
nects that  wafer  with  the  Christ,  and  though  it  re- 
mains bread  in  its  accident  and  on  the  outer  plane, 
it  is  visible  to  the  clairvoyant  eye  no  longer  as  real 
bread  at  the  higher  level,  but  as  instinct  with  the 
life  of  the  Christ;  and  that  is  why  it  is  called  the 
body  of  Christ.  It  is  not  the  body  of  physical  flesh 
which  He  wore  two  thousand  years  ago  in  Galilee 
and  in  Judaea;  but  it  is  really  and  just  as  abso- 
lutely a  body,  a  vehicle  of  the  Christ,  a  manifesta- 
tion of  Him  on  the  physical  plane,  as  ever  that  body 
was  long  ago  in  Palestine,  so  it  is  absolutely  true  to 
say:  "This  is  My  Body."  The  substans  is  the 
Christ,  although  the  physical  accident  is  still  a 
wafer;  but  now  it  is  a  consecrated  wafer. 

Just  the  same  thing  takes  place  with  the  consecra- 
tion of  the  wine  and  water  in  the  chalice.  In  that 
case  the  line  differs  in  colour  and  in  certain  other 
ways,  because  these  are  manifestations  of  the  two 
sides  and  two  natures  of  Christ;  but  they  are  both 
of  them  quite  truly  vehicles  of  Him.  They  do  re- 
present the  actual  Presence  of  the  Christ  Who  lived 
in  Palestine,  though  they  certainly  are  not  the  flesh 
which  He  then  wore.  I  know  that  this  statement 
would  be  deemed  inaccurate  by  many  theologians, 
but  I  am  dealing  with  the  observed  facts  of  the  case, 


222  The  Christian  Festivals 

and  not  with  pious  speculations.  That  being  so,  we 
begin  perhaps  to  see  what  a  wonderful  thing  this 
Sacrament  is.  We  come  into  the  direct  Presence 
of  the  Christ  Himself,  however  little  many  may  be 
aware  of  it ;  we  just  as  truly  come  into  His  Presence 
as  though  we  had  met  Him  in  that  body  of  old. 
We  are  just  as  literally  standing  before  the  Christ 
as  we  might  have  done  if  we  had  lived  in  Jeru- 
salem two  thousand  years  ago.  Not  only  may  we 
stand  in  His  presence  and  worship  Him  through 
that,  but  we  may  actually  go  further  and  receive  Him 
into  ourselves. 

It  is  a  common  misconception  among  the  ignorant 
to  imagine  that  Catholics  worship  the  bread  and 
the  wine.  Suppose  we  had  lived  in  Galilee  or  in 
Jerusalem  at  that  time  when  He  was  on  earth,  and 
had  met  the  Christ  and  fallen  at  His  feet  and  wor- 
shipped Him,  would  it  have  been  the  physical  body 
that  we  were  adoring,  or  would  it  have  been 
the  Christ,  who  lived  in  that  body?  Of  course  it 
would  have  been  the  Christ  Whom  we  venerated; 
but  the  sight  of  the  physical  body  would  make  it 
much  easier  for  many  people,  would  bring  Him 
much  nearer  to  their  thought  than  when  they  wor- 
ship Him  as  someone  far  away  in  heaven.  Exactly 
the  same  is  true  of  the  manifestation  in  this  His 
glorious  Sacrament.  It  is  not  the  wafer  that  we 
worship,  it  is  not  the  wine  which  we  adore;  it  is 
the  Christ  Who  manifests  Himself  to  physical  sight 
through  that  wine  and  that  wafer.  To  speak  of 
such  veneration  as  idolatry  is  the  height  of  folly.  It 
would  be  a  person  of  incredible  ignorance  who  would 
adore  the  outer  manifestation.  It  is  the  reality  be- 
hind which  we  worship;  but  the  outer  manifestation 


: 


Corpus  Christi  223 

makes  that  reality  easier  to  grasp,  to  understand,  to 
reach.  Our  prayers,  our  thoughts,  our  aspira- 
tions, are  forces  which  we  pour  out;  and  although 
we  call  them  spiritual  forces,  they  are  liable  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  just  as  any  other  force  is;  so 
that  if  there  is  a  channel  provided  for  them,  they 
now  more  readily  and  more  definitely,  just  as  elec- 
tricity flows  along  a  wire.  The  same  vibrations 
would  not  flow  in  the  same  way  without  the  wire; 
certainly  we  have  another  set  of  vibrations  which 
flow  without  wires,  by  means  of  which  we  have 
wireless  telegraphy,  but  that  is  another  matter.  The 
ordinary  electric  vibrations  need  the  wire,  and  flow 
more  readily  along  it. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  our  outpouring  of  force; 
we  can  worship  better,  our  aspirations  will  rise 
better,  if  there  is  a  channel  along  which  they  can 
go,  and  that  is  one  thing  which  Christ  provides  for 
us  in  this  His  most  holy  Sacrament.  We  can  take 
Him  into  ourselves;  think  what  that  must  mean. 
That  holy  Host,  which  is  in  very  truth  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Christ,  is  radiating  out  in  all  directions 
like  a  sun.  We  take  that  into  us  and  that  tremen- 
dous radiation  of  spiritual  power  is  within  us.  It 
is  radiating  through  the  whole  of  our  being,  through 
not  only  our  physical  body,  but  our  higher  vehicles, 
and  from  and  through  us  it  is  radiating  upon  all 
those  near  to  us.  For  some  hours  after  we  have 
taken  that  Sacrament,  we  are  ourselves  very  truly 
spiritual  suns.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  never  for- 
get that — that  we  bear  in  mind  that  grace  which 
has  come  to  us,  so  that  we  shall  do  nothing  unworthy 
of  the  Christ  Whom  we  bear  within  us.  For  truly 
those  who  have  communicated  are  Christophers,  like 


224  &he  Christian  Festivals 

St.  Christopher  who  bore  the  Christ;  they  are 
Christ-bearers  in  very  truth  j  and  let  him  be  clean 
who  bears  the  Christ. 

So  we  draw  this  wonderful  thing  into  us,  and  its 
tremendous  vibrations  are  acting  upon  us  all  the 
time.  We  have  our  own  vibrations;  our  physical 
bodies  have  certain  undulations  common  to  them;  so 
have  our  emotional  vehicles,  so  have  our  mental 
vehicles.  All  these  have  their  regular  rates,  but 
here  among  them,  when  we  take  this  most  holy 
Sacrament,  there  comes  an  enormously  higher  and 
stronger  set  of  oscillations.  They  will  act  upon  ours, 
and  they  will  tune  them  up;  they  will  bring  them 
— not  yet  indeed  to  the  Christ  level  (would  that  that 
could  be  so ! ) ;  but  at  least  they  will  raise  them  very 
much  from  what  they  were  before,  and  for  the  time 
we  are  greatly  elevated  and  developed.  But  our 
own  vibrations  have  been  going  on  within  us  for 
years  and  years,  and  so  have  the  almost  irresistible 
power  of  habit ;  and  in  the  end  they  overpower  these 
other  more  glorious  oscillations,  which  slowly  die 
down  as  gradually  the  sacred  Element  disintegrates 
within  us,  as  does  all  other  food;  but  meantime 
these  higher  undulations  have  been  operating  upon 
ours,  and  have  most  assuredly  left  their  mark. 

How  much  they  can  do  for  us  depends  very  largely 
upon  our  attitude.  If  we  are  receptive,  if  we  try 
to  lay  ourselves  open  to  that  holy  influence,  every 
communion  is  a  definite  step  on  our  upward  path. 
If  we  are  careless  and  forgetful,  if  the  thoughts  of 
the  world,  of  business  and  pleasure,  come  sweeping 
in  upon  us  and  overpower  us — I  do  not  say  that  we 
shall  not  be  influenced,  but  we  shall  be  less  influenced 
than  we  should  otherwise  have  been.  And  so  we 


Corpus  Christi  225 

see  that  what  Christ  can  do  for  us  depends  on 
what  we  are  prepared  and  willing  and  ready  to  let 
Him  do.  He  stands  always  there;  He  knocks;  as 
He  said  Himself,  He  stands  at  the  door  of  the 
human  heart  and  knocks,  and  He  waits  for  admit- 
tance; but  He  never  forces  His  way  in.  It  is  for 
us  to  receive,  and  He  is  always  ready  to  give — is 
indeed  always  giving,  if  we  will  but  be  always  in  a 
state  to  receive. 

Let  us  try,  therefore,  to  realize  what  this  great 
and  wonderful  Sacrament  means;  then  we  shall 
understand  why  a  great  festival  is  kept  in  honour 
of  it  and  in  gratitude  for  it.  Then  we  shall  truly 
join  in  the  celebration  of  Corpus  Christi,  the  body 
of  Christ,  because  we  shall  know  something  at  least 
of  what  is  meant  by  that  body  of  Christ,  and  how 
in  His  great  lovingkindness  and  goodness  He  has 
provided  for  us  this  easy  means  of  drawing  near  to 
Him,  and  of  becoming  one  with  Him. 

Evidently  there  is  much  for  us  to  gain  in  taking 
part  in  this  sublime  service;  yet  even  that  is  not 
the  principal  object  of  the  ceremony.  It  offers  us 
an  opportunity  not  only  of  personal  advancement 
but  of  altruistic  work.  We  become  a  channel  for 
His  mighty  force,  not  primarily  for  ourselves,  but 
in  order  that  we  may  help  the  progress  of  our  fellow- 
men.  This  wonderful  outpouring  of  divine  power 
has  been  made  possible  by  a  skilfully  arranged  co- 
operation. First,  the  priest  blew  a  kind  of  gigantic 
bubble  at  the  Asperges,  because  the  Angel  of  the 
Eucharist  desired  to  erect  a  thought-form  inside 
which  the  divine  force  could  be  stored,  might  accu- 
mulate until  it  could  be  directed  and  used.  But  to 
do  this  the  Angel  must  have  a  field  already  puri- 


226  The  Christian  Festivals 

fied  from  worldly  thought,  and  this  the  priest  makes 
for  him;  and  he  must  have  material  for  his  struc- 
ture, and  that  is  provided  for  him  by  our  outpour- 
ing of  devotion  and  affection  during  the  service.  So 
the  great  eucharistic  edifice  is  gradually  built  by 
the  Angel;,  and  inside  that  edifice  the  priest  (by  the 
second  censing)  makes  a  kind  of  insulated  chamber 
or  casket  round  the  sacred  elements,  cutting  them 
off  from  the  rest  of  the  church,  just  as  he  had  tem- 
porarily cut  off  the  church  from  the  world  outside. 
Within  that  innermost  casket  the  priest  begins  a 
sort  of  tube  which  is  the  actual  channel  for  the  force ; 
and  inside  that  tube  takes  place  the  change  at  the 
moment  of  consecration  of  which  I  have  already 
written. 

The  Christ  Himself  pours  out  the  power;  in  order 
that  He  may  do  that  easily  and  with  the  least  exer- 
tion, leaving  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  the 
force  to  be  used  for  its  real  purpose,  the  Angel  of 
the  Presence  by  the  actual  transubstantiation  makes 
the  line  of  fire  along  which  He  can  pour  it.  The 
priest,  however,  by  pushing  up  his  tube  and  so  pre- 
paring a  channel  has  made  it  possible  for  the  Angel 
to  do  that.  There  are  many  electrical  experiments 
which  must  be  performed  in  a  vacuum;  and  in  that 
case  it  is  of  course  necessary  to  make  the  vacuum 
first.  So  in  this  case  the  tube  must  be  made  before 
that  especial  line  of  communication  can  be  inserted 
in  it.  But  the  priest  could  not  make  that  tube 
unless  he  had  first  made  a  properly  isolated  casket 
from  which  to  push  upwards,  and  so  he  has  per- 
formed the  isolation  of  the  elements.  The  people 
have  assisted  the  priest,  and  have  supplied  the 
material  for  the  edifice  through  which  the  force  is 


Corpus  Christi  2Z7 

distributed  when  it  has  been  poured  down.  Thus 
we  see  that  all  have  taken  their  due  part  in  the 
somewhat  complicated  process  which  produces  so 
magnificent  a  result. 

This  process  is  followed  in  detail  in  the  first 
volume  of  this  series,  The  Science  of  the  Sacraments, 
in  which  will  be  found  many  illustrations  and  dia- 
grams intended  to  help  in  making  its  action  compre- 
hensible. It  is  important  that  our  students  should 
grasp  this  idea  that  all  the  greater  divine  services 
are  meant  primarily  to  benefit  the  world  at  large, 
and  are  for  those  who  take  part  in  them  first  of  all 
an  opportunity  for  useful  work  and  only  secondarily 
a  means  of  grace. 

We  are  now  at  the  end  of  the  first  division  of  the 
Church's  year.  We  have  followed  the  great  Mystery- 
Drama  of  Initiation  as  typified  by  the  life  of  the 
Christ  from  its  inception  to  its  close;  we  have  cele- 
brated the  glorious  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and 
the  wondrous  Sacrament  of  the  Love  of  Christ.  Now 
we  come  to  that  second  half  of  the  year  which  is 
devoted  mainly  to  putting  into  practice  the  lessons 
that  we  have  learnt,  to  pouring  out  upon  our  brethren 
the  power  which  we  have  developed  within  our- 
selves. To  help  us  in  our  efforts  by  making  them 
more  precise  and  definite,  we  have  in  that  later  part 
of  the  year  assigned  to  each  Sunday  some  special 
intent  which  it  seemed  to  us  desirable  to  emphasize, 
composing  or  adapting  a  collect  and  selecting  an 
epistle  and  a  gospel  more  or  less  appropriate  to 
that  subject.  Towards  the  end  of  this  book  some 
addresses  enlarging  upon  a  few  of  these  intents  will 
be  given;  but  I  should  like  first  to  comment  upon 
certain  festivals  which  we  find  that  the  Church  has 


228  She  Christian  Festivals 

prescribed,  not  directly  connected  with  the  Mystery- 
Drama,  but  nevertheless  of  considerable  importance. 
Among  them  will  be  found  several  feasts  of  our 
Ladx,  tne  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  of  the  holy  Angels 
and  of  various  saints.  We  will  begin  with  the  feasts 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 


CHAPTEE  XIII 
FEASTS  OF  OUR  LADY 

There  is  a  vast  amount  of  misconception  connected 
with  the  subject  of  our  Lady,  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Mary,  and  also  a  great  deal  of  ignorant  pre- 
judice about  it.  The  Roman  and  Greek  Churches 
hold  her  name  in  deep  reverence,  although  many  of 
their  members  know  but  little  of  the  real  meaning 
of  the  beautiful  and  poetic  symbolism  connected 
with  that  name.  The  Church  of  England  has  cur- 
tailed somewhat  the  reverence  paid  to  her,  while 
those  Christians  who  do  not  belong  to  her  com- 
munion usually  hold  that  it  is  idolatrous  to 
worship  a  woman — an  attitude  of  mind  which  is 
merely  the  result  of  narrowness  and  ignorance. 

If  we  want  really  to  understand  the  truth  in  these 
matters,  we  must  begin  by  freeing  our  minds  alto- 
gether from  prejudice;  and  the  first  point  to  realize 
is  that  no  one  ever  has  worshipped  a  woman  (or  a 
man  either)  in  the  sense  in  which  the  rabid  pro- 
testant  means  the  word.  He  is  incapable  of  compre- 
hending— he  does  not  want  to  comprehend — the 
Catholic  attitude  towards  our  Lady  or  the  saints.  We 
who  are  students,  however,  must  adopt  a  fairer 
position  than  that.  Let  us  quote  from  The  Catholic 
Encyclopedia  (article  Worship )  what  may  be  taken 
as  an  approved  and  authoritative  statement  of  the 
Roman  view  on  the  subject: 

;' There  are  several  degrees  of  worship;  if  it  is 
addressed  directly  to  God,  it  is  superior,  absolute, 
supreme  worship,  or  worship  of  adoration,  or,  ac- 

229 


230  &he  Christian  Festivals 

cording  to  the  consecrated  theological  term,  a 
worship  of  latria.*  This  sovereign  worship  is  due  to 
God  alone;  addressed  to  a  creature  it  would  become 
idolatry. 

"When  worship  is  addressed  only  indirectly  to 
God — that  is,  when  its  object  is  the  veneration  of 
martyrs,  of  angels,  or  of  saints,  it  is  a  subordinate 
worship  dependent  on  the  first,  and  relative,  in  so 
far  as  it  honours  the  creatures  of  God  for  their 
peculiar  relations  with  Him;  it  is  designated  by 
theologians  as  the  worship  of  dulia,\  a  term  denot- 
ing servitude,  and  implying,  when  used  to  signify 
our  worship  of  distinguished  servants  of  God,  that 
their  service  to  Him.  is  their  title  to  our  veneration. 

"As  the  Blessed  Virgin  has  a  separate  and  abso- 
lutely supereminent  rank  among  the  saints,  the  wor- 
ship paid  to  her  is  called  hyperdulia.  In  accordance 
with  these  principles  it  will  readily  be  understood 
that  a  certain  worship  may  be  offered  even  to  inani- 
mate objects,  such  as  the  relics  of  a  martyr,  the 
cross  of  Christ,  the  crown  of  thorns,  or  even  the 
statue  or  picture  of  a  saint.  There  is  here  no  con- 
fusion or  danger  of  idolatry,  for  this  worship  is  sub- 
ordinate or  dependent.  The  relic  of  the  saint  is 
venerated  because  of  the  link  which  united  it  with 
the  person  who  is  adored  or  venerated;  while  the 
statue  or  picture  is  regarded  as  having  a  conven- 
tional relation  to  a  person  who  has  a  right  to  our 
homage — as  being  a  symbol  which  reminds  us  of  that 
person/' 

•This  word  is  an  amphibrach.  Accentuate  the  second  syllable,  pronouncing 
it  exactly  like  the  English  word  "try." 

•I  Again  an  amphibrach.  Accentuate  the  second  syllable,  pronouncing  it  like 
the  English  "lie."  The  first  syllable  is  pronounced  like  the  English  word 
"  do." 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  231 

That  seems  to  me  to  make  the  whole  matter  admir- 
ably clear,  and  to  present  a  correct  and  defensible 
attitude.  Much  confusion  has  arisen  from  the  trans- 
lation of  those  three  Greek  words,  with  their  delicate 
shades  of  meaning,  by  the  one  English  word  worship. 
I  suggest  that  among  ourselves  and  in  our  literature 
we  make  the  distinction  clearer  by  translating  only 
latreia\  as  worship ;  douleia  might  be  rendered  as 
reverence  or  veneration,  and  hyperdouleia  as  deep 
reverence.  But  the  point  for  us  to  bear  in  mind  is 
that  no  instructed  person  has  ever  anywhere  or  at 
any  time  confused  such  worship  or  reverence  as  may 
duly  and  properly  be  offered  to  all  great  and  holy 
beings  with  that  higher  worship  which  may  be  given 
to  God  alone.  Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  that 
fact. 

Much  nonsense  has  been  talked  about  idolatry, 
chiefly  by  people  who  are  too  anxious  to  force  their 
own  beliefs  upon  others  to  have  either  time  or  in- 
clination to  try  to  understand  the  point  of  view  of 
wiser  and  more  tolerant  thinkers.  If  they  knew 
enough  of  etymology  to  be  aware  that  the  word  idol 
means  an  image  or  representation,  they  might  per- 
haps ask  themselves  of  what  this  thing  is  an  image, 
and  whether  it  is  not  that  reality  behind  which  these 
much-maligned  savages  are  worshipping,  instead  of 
the  wood  and  stone  about  which  they  prate  so  glibly. 
The  image,  the  picture,  the  cross,  the  lingam  of  the 
Saivite,  the  sacred  book  of  the  Sikh — all  these  things 
are  symbols;  not  in  themselves  objects  of  worship, 
but  reverenced  by  those  who  understand,  precisely 
because  they  are  intended  to  remind  us  of  some  aspect 

jHera  the  true  Greek  spelling  is  given  ;  the  Encyclopedia  uses  the  mediroral 
Latin. 


232  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  God,  and  to  turn  our  thoughts  to  Him.  In  India 
these  aspects  are  called  by  many  different  names,  and 
the  missionary  makes  haste  to  revile  the  Hindu  as  a 
polytheist;  yet  the  coolie  who  works  in  his  garden 
could  tell  him  that  there  is  but  one  God,  and  that 
all  these  are  but  aspects  of  Him,  lines  of  approach 
to  Him,  divided  and_  materialized  in  order  to  bring 
infinity  a  little  nearer  to  the  grasp  of  our  very 
finite  minds. 

The  bloodthirsty  elemental  Jehovah  whom  the 
Jews  worshipped  at  an  early  and  undeveloped  period 
of  their  history  as  a  nation  was  always  clamouring 
for  exclusive  devotion:  "Thou  shalt  have  none  other 
gods  but  me."  He  openly  acknowledged  himself  as 
jealous,  revengeful  and  unjust,  visiting  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children,  and  generally  behav- 
ing like  a  savage  oriental  despot  of  the  worst  type. 
He  is  obviously  a  mere  tribal  deity,  one  amongst 
many,  nervously  anxious  lest  any  of  his  unfortunate 
followers  should  desert  him,  and  transfer  to  one  of 
his  rivals  part  of  the  horrible  tribute  of  the  blood 
of  rams  and  oxen  which  his  obscene  appetite  de- 
manded. How  different  from  this  revolting  entity  is 
the  loving  Father  of  Whom  the  Christ  tells  us,  the 
one  true  God  Who  said  through  another  of  His  mani- 
festations: "All  true  worship  comes  to  Me,  through 
whatsoever  name  it  may  be  offered";  and  again: 
"By  whatsoever  path  men  approach  Me,  along  that 
path  do  I  meet  them;  for  the  paths  by  which  men 
come  from  every  side  are  Mine." 

There  is  nothing  but  God;  and  for  whomsoever 
we  feel  reverence,  adoration,  love,  it  is  to  the  God 
within  that  person,  the  God  manifesting  through 
him  (however  partially)  that  that  reverence,  adora- 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  233 

tion  or  love  is  offered.  ''Many  sheep  I  have  which 
are  not  of  this  fold;  them  also  will  I  bring,  and 
they  shall  hear  My  voice,  and  there  shall  be  one 
fold,  and  one  shepherd." 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  rise  above  the  miasma 
of  ignorance  and  bigotry  into  the  purer  air  of 
justice  and  comprehension,  let  us  in  that  spirit  ap- 
proach the  consideration  of  the  beautiful  and  won- 
derful manifestation  of  the  divine  power  and  love 
which  is  enshrined  within  the  name  of  our  Lady, 
the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary. 

I  do  not  think  that  anyone  with  our  western 
education  finds  it  easy  to  understand  the  wealth  of 
symbolism  which  is  used  in  oriental  religions;  and 
people  forget  that  Christianity  is  an  oriental  reli- 
gion, just  as  much  as  Buddhism,  Hinduism  or 
Zoroastrianism.  The  Christ  took  a  Jewish  body — 
an  oriental  body;  and  those  to  whom  He  spoke  had 
the  oriental  methods  of  thought,  and  not  ours  at 
all.  They  have  a  wonderful  and  most  elaborate 
method  of  symbolism  in  all  these  religions,  and  they 
take  great  delight  in  their  symbols;  they  weave  them 
in  and  out  and  combine  them,  and  treat  them  beauti- 
fully in  poetry  and  in  art.  But  our  tendency  is  to- 
wards what  we  call  practicality,  and  we  are  apt  to 
materialize  all  these  ideas,  and  often  greatly  degrade 
them  in  consequence. 

Let  us  never  forget  that  our  religion  comes 
from  the  East,  and  that  if  we  want  to  understand 
it,  we  must  look  at  it  first  of  all  as  an  oriental 
would  look  at  it,  and  not  apply  our  modern  scien- 
tific theories  until  we  are  able  to  see  how  they  fit 
in.  They  can  be  made  to  fit  in,  but  unless  we  know 
how,  we  are  likely  to  make  shipwreck  of  the  whole 


234  The  Christian  Festivals 

thing,  and  we  run  a  serious  risk  of  assuming  that 
the  people  who  hold  the  allegory  know  nothing  at 
all  and  are  hopelessly  wrong.  They  are  not  wrong 
at  all.  Those  beautiful  old  myths  convey  the  mean- 
ing, without  necessarily  putting  the  cold  scientific 
facts  before  those  who  have  not  developed  their 
minds  sufficiently  to  grasp  them  in  that  form.  That 
was  well  understood  in  the  early  Church. 

There  is  always  much  more  behind  these  beauti- 
ful and  poetical  thoughts  of  the  men  of  old  than 
most  people  believe.  It  is  foolish  to  be  filled  with 
ignorant  prejudice;  it  is  better  by  far  to  try  to 
understand.  Whatever  in  religion  anywhere  has 
been  beautiful  and  helpful  to  man  has  always  be- 
hind it  a  real  truth.  It  is  for  us  to  disinter  that 
truth;  it  is  for  us  to  clear  away  the  crust  of  the 
ages  and  to  let  the  truth  shine  forth. 

That  is  true  with  regard  to  this  beautiful  glyph 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  There  are  three 
separate  ideas  involved  in  our  thought  of  her — ideas 
which  have  been  confused,  degraded,  materialized, 
until  in  the  form  in  which  the  story  is  now  held,  it 
has  become  impossible  for  any  thinking  man.  But 
that  is  not  so  if  we  analyse  it  and  understand  its 
real  meaning. 

The  three  ideas  are: 

1.  The  Mother  of  the  disciple  Jesus ;  what  she 
was  and  what  she  afterwards  became. 

2.  The   sea  of   virgin  matter,  the  Great  Deep, 
the  waters  over  the  face  of  which  the  Spirit 
of  God  moved. 

3.  The  feminine  Aspect  of  the  Deity. 

Let  us  consider  these  three  ideas  separately. 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  235 

THE  MOTHER  OF  JESUS 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  disciple  Jesus  was 
born  precisely  as  other  men  are  born.  The  story  of 
the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
of  her  overshadowing  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of 
the  Virgin  Birth — all  that  group  of  ideas  refers  to 
the  myth,  to  the  symbol;  it  has  a  real  meaning  and 
a  beautiful  interpretation,  as  I  shall  presently  try  to 
show,  but  it  is  not  concerned  with  the  physical 
body  of  the  disciple  Jesus.  The  mother  of  that 
physical  body  was  a  Jewish  lady  of  noble  birth,  but, 
if  tradition  is  to  be  believed,  of  no  great  wealth. 
We  need  not  think  of  Joseph  (who,  remember,  was 
also  of  the  seed  of  David)  as  a  carpenter,  because 
that  is  part  of  the  symbolism,  and  not  of  the  his- 
tory. In  that  symbolism  Joseph  is  the  guardian  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin — of  the  soul  in  man.  He  repre- 
sents the  mind;  and  because  the  mind  is  not  the 
creator  of  the  soul,  but  only  its  furnisher  and  its 
decorator,  Joseph  is  not  a  mason,  like  the  Great 
Architect  of  the  Universe,  but  a  carpenter.  We 
need  not  think  of  our  Lord  as  working  in  a  car- 
penter 's  shop ;  that  is  simply  an  instance  of  the 
confusion  and  materialization  introduced  by  those 
who  do  not  understand  the  symbolism. 

The  mother  of  Jesus,  then,  was  a  noblewoman  of 
Judaea,  a  descendant  of  the  royal  house  of  David. 
Truly  she  who  was  chosen  for  so  high  an  honour 
must  have  been  pure  and  true  and  of  flawless  char- 
acter— a  great  saint;  for  none  but  such  could  have 
given  birth  to  so  pure,  so  wonderful,  so  glorious  a 
body.  A  saintly  and  a  godly  life  she  led;  one  of  ter- 
rible suffering,  yet  with  wondrous  consolations.  We 


236  The  Christian  Festivals 

know  but  little  of  its  details;  we  glimpse  it  only  oc- 
casionally in  the  scant  contemporary  narrative;  but 
it  was  a  life  which  it  will  do  us  good  to  image  to  our- 
selves, an  example  for  which  we  may  well  thank 
God.  It  carried  her  far  along  the  upward  path- 
far  enough  to  make  possible  a  curious  and  beautiful 
later  development,  which  I  must  now  explain. 

Students  of  the  inner  life  know  that  when  man 
has  reached  the  end  of  the  purely  human  part  of 
his  evolution — when  the  next  step  will  lift  him  into 
a  kingdom  as  definitely  above  humanity  as  man  is 
above  the  animal  kingdom — several  lines  of  growth 
lie  open  before  him,  and  it  is  left  to  him  to  choose 
which  he  will  take.  Occasionally,  too,  there  are 
conditions  under  which  this  choice  may  be  to  some 
extent  anticipated.  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss 
the  alternatives;  let  it  suffice  here  to  say  that  one 
of  the  possibilities  is  to  become  a  great  Angel  or 
messenger  of  God — to  join  the  deva  evolution,  as  an 
Indian  would  put  it.  And  this  was  the  line  which 
our  Blessed  Lady  chose,  when  she  reached  the  level 
at  which  a  human  birth  was  no  longer  necessary 
for  her. 

Vast  numbers  of  Angels  have  never  been  human, 
because  their  evolution  has  come  along  another  line, 
but  there  are  Angels  who  have  been  men,  who  at  a 
certain  stage  of  this  development  have  chosen  to 
follow  the  Angel  line;  and  a  very  glorious,  magni- 
ficent and  helpful  line  it  is.  So  she,  who  two  thou- 
sand years  ago  bore  the  body  of  Jesus  in  order  that 
it  might  later  on  be  taken  by  the  Christ,  is  now 
a  mighty  Spirit. 

Much  beautiful  enthusiasm  and  devotion  has  all 
through  the  centuries  been  poured  out  at  her  feet; 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  237 

thousands  upon  thousands  of  monks  and  nuns,  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  suffering  men  and  women, 
have  come  before  her  and  poured  out  their  sorrows 
and  have  prayed  to  her  that  she  in  turn  would 
present  their  petitions  to  her  Son.  This  last  prayer 
is  a  misconception,  because  He  Who  is  the  Eternal 
Son  of  God  and  at  the  same  time  the  Christ  within 
every  one  of  us,  needs  none  to  intercede  with  Him 
for  us.  He  knows  before  we  speak  far  better  than 
we  what  is  best  for  us.  We  are  in  Him,  and  through 
Him  were  we  made,  and  without  Him  was  not  any- 
thing made  which  was  made,  neither  we  nor  the 
smallest  speck  of  dust  in  all  the  universe. 

Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  nearer  than  hands  and  feet. 

One  does  not  pray  to  great  Angels  for  interces- 
sion if  one  understands,  because  one  knows  that  He 
in  Whom  all  Angels  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being,  is  already  doing  for  everyone  of  us  the  very 
best  that  can  be  done.  But  just  as  one  may  ask 
help  from  a  human  friend  in  the  flesh — as,  for 
example,  one  may  ask  of  him  the  encouragement  of 
his  thought — so  may  one  ask  aid  from  the  same 
human  friend  when  he  has  cast  aside  his  robe  of 
flesh;  and  in  the  same  way  one  may  ask  the  same 
kind  of  help  from  these  great  Spirits  at  their  higher 
level. 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable  or  unscientific  in 
this.  I  myself  have  often  had  letters  from 
people  who  know  that  I  have  studied  these  matters, 
telling  me  that  at  such-and-such  a  time  they  would  be 
going  through  some  difficulty — a  surgical  operation 
perhaps,  or  some  other  specially  trying  experience 
— and  asking  me  to  think  of  them  at  that  moment, 
and  to  send  them  helpful  thought.  Naturally  I 


238  ^he  Christian  Festivals 

always  do  it.  And  as  I  know  there  can  be  no  effect 
without  a  cause,  and  in  exactly  the  same  way  there 
can  be  no  due  cause  which  does  not  produce  its 
effect,  I  know  that  if  I  (or  if  any  of  you)  take  the 
trouble  to  fix  our  thought  upon  any  one  in  sorrow 
or  difficulty,  and  try  to  send  him  helpful  ideas,  try 
to  put  before  him  something  which  will  strengthen 
him  in  his  troubles,  we  may  be  perfectly  sure  that 
that  thought-force  does  produce  its  effect,  that  it 
goes  and  reacts  upon  the  person.  To  what  extent 
it  will  help  him  depends  on  his  receptivity,  upon 
the  strength  of  the  thought,  and  upon  various  other 
circumstances;  but  that  some  effect  will  be  produced 
we  may  be  absolutely  sure.  And  so  when  we  send  a 
request  for  kindly,  helpful,  strengthening  thought 
to  one  of  these  great  ones — whether  it  be  a  saint 
now  in  the  flesh,  or  one  who  has  laid  aside  that  flesh, 
or  one  of  the  great  Angels — assuredly  that  help  will 
come  to  us,  and  will  strengthen  us. 

That  is  the  case  with  our  Blessed  Lady;  yet  there 
are  those  who  would  have  us  believe  that  all  that 
splendid  good  feeling,  all  that  love  and  uttermost 
devotion,  have  run  to  waste  and  been  useless.  In- 
credible as  it  appears  to  us  who  are  used  to  wider 
and  saner  thought,  I  really  think  that  in  their  curious 
ignorance  the  more  rabid  enemies  of  the  Church 
actually  believe  this.  They  even  go  further  still, 
and  say  that  it  is  wicked  and  blasphemous  fcr  a 
man  to  feel  that  love  and  devotion  towards  her! 
It  sounds  like  madness,  but  I  am  afraid  it  is 
true  that  there  are  such  people.  Of  course  the 
truth  is  that  no  devotion,  no  love,  no  good  feel- 
ing has  ever  been  wrong,  to  whomsoever  it  has 
been  sent.  It  may  sometimes  have  been  wrongly 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  239 

directed.  Devotion  and  affection  have  often  been 
lavished  on  unworthy  objects,  but  it  has  not 
been  a  wrong  act  on  the  part  of  the  lavisher — only 
a  lack  of  discrimination;  always  it  has  been  good  for 
"him  that  he  should  pour  himself  out  in  love,  and 
develop  his  soul  thereby. 

Remember  that  if  we  love  any  person,  it  is  the  God 
within  that  person  that  we  are  loving;  the  God  with- 
in us  recognizes  the  God  within  him;  deep  calleth 
unto  deep,  and  the  recognition  of  the  Godhead  is 
bliss.  The  lover  often  sees  in  the  beloved  qualities 
which  no  one  else  can  discern;  but  those  good  quali- 
ties are  there  in  latency,  because  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  within  every  one  of  us;  and  the  earnest  belief 
and  strong  affection  of  the  lover  tend  to  call 
those  latent  qualities  into  manifestation.  He  who 
idealizes  another  tends  to  make  that  other  what  he 
thinks  him  to  be. 

Co  aid  we  suppose  then  that  all  the  wonderful 
and  beautiful  devotion  addressed  to  our  Lady  has 
been  wasted?  Any  man  who  thinks  so  must  under- 
stand the  divine  economy  very  poorly.  No  true  and 
holy  feeling  has  ever  been  wasted  since  time  began, 
or  ever  will  be;  for  God,  Who  knows  us  all  so  well, 
arranges  that  the  least  touch  of  devotion,  the  least 
feeling  of  comprehension,  the  least  thought  of  wor- 
ship, shall  always  be  received,  shall  always  work  out 
to  its  fullest  possibility,  and  shall  always  bring  its 
response  from  Him.  In  this  case  in  His  loving- 
kindness  He  has  appointed  the  Mother  of  Jesus  as 
a  mighty  Angel  to  receive  those  prayers — to  be  a 
channel  for  them,  to  accept  that  devotion,  and  to 
forward  it  to  Him.  Therefore  the  reverence  offered 
to  her,  and  the  love  poured  out  at  her  feet  have 


240  The  Christian  Festivals 

never  for  one    moment    been    wasted;    they     have 
brought  their  result,  they  have  done  their  work. 

If  we  try  to  understand  it,  we  shall  see  how  very 
far  grander  is  that  reality  than  the  barren  concep- 
tion that  all  high  thought,  all  worship,  all  praise 
not  directed  through  a  particular  Name  must  inevit- 
ably go  astray.  Why  should  God  limit  Himself  by 
our  mistakes  as  to  names?  He  looks  at  the  heart, 
not  at  the  words.  The  words  are  conditioned  by 
outer  circumstances — by  the  birthplace  of  the 
speaker,  for  example.  We  are  Christians  because 
we  happen  to  be  born  in  England,  or  America,  or 
some  other  Christian  land;  not  because  we  have 
examined  and  compared  all  religions,  and  deliber- 
ately chosen  Christianity.  We  are  Christians  be- 
cause it  was  the  faith  amidst  which  we  found  our- 
selves, and  so  we  accepted  it.  Did  it  ever  occur  to 
you  that  if  we  had  been  born  as  natives  of  India 
we  should  have  been  Hindus  or  Muhammadans  just 
as  naturally,  and  should  have  poured  out  our  devo- 
tion to  God  under  the  name  of  Shiva,  Krishna,  Allah, 
instead  of  the  name  of  Christ?  If  we  had  been  born 
in  Ceylon  or  Burma  we  should  have  been  ardent 
Buddhists.  What  do  these  local  considerations  mat- 
ter to  God?  It  is  under  His  law  of  perfect  justice, 
under  His  scheme  of  evolution,  that  one  of  His 
creatures  is  born  in  England  and  another  in  India 
or  Ceylon,  according  to  his  needs  and  his  deserts. 
When  devotion  is  poured  out  by  any  man,  God  re- 
ceives it  through  the  channel  which  He  has  ap- 
pointed for  that  man,  and  so  everyone  alike  is  satis- 
fied and  justice  is  done.  It  would  be  a  gross  and 
a  glaring  injustice  if  any  honest  devotion  should  be 
thrown  aside  or  rejected.  Never  has  the  least  mite 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  241 

of  it  been  rejected.  God's  ways  are  other  than  ours, 
and  His  grasp  of  these  things  is  wider  and  greater 
than  ours.  As  Faber  wrote: 

For  we  make  His  love  too  narrow 

By  false   limits   of   our   own, 
And  we  magnify  His  strictness 

With  a  zeal  He  will  not  own. 

The  stories  that  we  hear  about  our  Blessed  Lady 
may  well  have  a  basis  of  fact.  We  hear  of  her  ap- 
pearing in  various  places  to  various  people — to 
Joan  of  Arc,  for  example.  It  is  exceedingly  prob- 
able that  she  did — that  this  great  Angel  did  so  show 
herself  or  himself  (for  there  is  nothing  that  we  can 
call  sex  at  such  a  height  as  that).  There  is  no 
antecedent  improbability  in  this,  and  it  is  most  un- 
likely that  all  the  people  who  testify  to  these  appari- 
tions were  deluded  or  hypnotized,  or  under  some 
strange  error.  All  students  know  that  earnest 
thought  upon  any  subject  produces  strong  thought- 
forms,  which  are  very  near  the  edge  of  visibility; 
many  thousands  of  such  thought-forms  have  been 
made  of  our  Lady,  and  she  has  never  failed  to  re- 
spond, and  most  thoroughly  and  effectually  to  fill 
them.  It  is  certain  that  out  of  all  these  some  would 
under  favourable  circumstances  become  physically 
visible;  and  even  when  they  remain  astral,  sensitive 
people  are  often  able  to  see  them.  The  terrible  and 
unexampled  strain  and  stress  of  the  war  made  many 
people  sensitive  to  psychic  impressions  who  were 
never  so  before.  Thus  it  happens  that  we  hear  many 
stories  of  apparitions  just  now,  and  visions  or  mani- 
festations of  our  Blessed  Lady  take  a  prominent 
place  among  them. 


242  The  Christian  Festivals 

It  is  said,  too,  that  wonderful  cures  have  been 
produced  at  Lourdes  and  other  places  by  faith  in 
her.  Probably  they  have.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
least  unscientific,  there  is  nothing  outside  reason 
and  common  sense  in  supposing  that.  We  know  per- 
fectly well  that  a  strong  downpouring  of  mesmeric 
force  will  produce  certain  cures;  we  have  no  know- 
ledge as  to  the  limit  of  such  power,  but  it  is  well  to 
remember  that  all  these  things  have  truth  behind 
them. 

THE  VIRGIN  MATTER 

God  in  the  Absolute  is  eternally  One;  but  God  in 
manifestation  is  twain — life  and  substance,  spirit 
and  matter,  or,  as  science  would  say,  force  and 
matter.  When  Christ,  alone-born*  of  the  Father, 
springs  forth  from  His  bosom,  and  looks  back  upon 
that  which  remains,  He  sees  as  it  were  a  veil 
thrown  over  it — a  veil  to  which  the  philosophers  of 
ancient  India  gave  the  name  of  Mulaprakriti,  the 
root  of  matter;  not  matter  as  we  know  it,  but  the 
potential  essence  of  matter;  not  space,  but  the  with- 
in of  space;  that  from  which  all  proceeds,  the  con- 
taining element  of  Deity,  of  which  space  is  a 
manifestation. 

But  that  veil  of  matter  also  is  God;  it  is  just  as 
much  part  of  God  as  is  the  Spirit  which  acts  upon 
it.  The  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters  of  space;  but  the  waters  of  space  are  divine 
in  their  making  just  as  much  as  the  spirit  that 
moves  upon  them,  because  there  is  nothing  but  God 
anywhere.  This  is  the  original  substance  under- 
lying that  whereof  all  things  are  made.  That  in 

*  See  The  Science  of  the  Sacraments,  p.  16. 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  243 

ancient  philosophy  is  the  Great  Deep,  and  then,  be- 
cause it  surrounds  and  contains  all  things,  so  is  it 
the  heavenly  wisdom  which  encircles  and  embraces 
all.  For  that  in  speech  the  philosophers  used  always 
the  feminine  pronoun;  they  speak  of  that  Great 
Deep — of  the  eternal  wisdom — as  "she."  She  is 
thus  the  soul,  macroscosmic  and  microcosmic,  for 
what  is  true  above  is  also  true  below. 

These  ideas  are  somewhat  complex  and  foreign  to 
our  modern  thought,  but  if  we  want  to  understand 
an  oriental  religion  we  must  give  ourselves  the 
trouble  to  grasp  this  oriental  way  of  looking  at 
things.  And  so  we  realize  how  it  is  that  she,  this 
other  aspect  of  the  Deity,  is  spoken  of  as  Mother, 
Daughter  and  Spouse  of  God.  Daughter,  because 
she  also  comes  forth  from  the  same  Eternal  Father; 
Spouse,  because  through  the  action  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  upon  the  virgin  matter  the  birth  of  the  Christ 
into  the  world  takes  place;  Mother,  because  through 
matter  alone  is  that  evolution  possible  which  brings 
the  Christ-spirit  to  birth  in  man.  But  this  subject 
belongs  rather  to  our  future  theological  volume,  in 
which  we  shall  try  to  explain  it  more  fully. 

Above  and  beyond  the  Solar  Trinity  of  which  we 
usually  think  there  is  the  First  Trinity  of  all,  formed 
when  out  of  what  seems  to  us  nothing  there  came  the 
First  Manifestation.  For  in  that  First  and  highest 
of  all  Trinities  God  the  Father  is  the  Absolute — 
what  we  may  with  all  reverence  call  the  Static  Mode 
of  the  Deity.  From  that  leaps  forth  the  Christ, 
the  Second  Aspect  truly  of  the  Godhead  and  yet  the 
First  Manifestation,  for  God  the  Father  is  "seen  of 


none." 


244  The  Christian  Festivals 

Then  through  the  interaction  of  the  Deity  in  His 
next  Aspect — that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  Who  repre- 
sents the  Dynamic  Mode  of  the  Deity  (Will  in 
action) — from  that  essence,  that  root  of  all  matter, 
come  all  the  worlds  and  all  the  further  manifesta- 
tions at  lower  levels,  of  whatever  kind  they  may  be, 
including  even  the  Holy  Trinity  of  our  own  solar 
system. 

The  Mother-Aspect  of  Deity  thus  manifests  as  the 
aether  of  space — hot  the  ether  which  conveys  vibra- 
tions of  light  to  our  eyes,  for  that  is  a  physical 
thing;  but  the  aether  of  space,  which  in  occult 
chemistry  we  call  koilon,*  without  which  no  evolu- 
tion could  be,  and  yet  it  is  virgin  and  unaffected 
after  all  the  evolution  has  passed. 

Into  that  koilon  or  finer  aether,  the  Christ,  the 
energizing  Logos  or  Word  of  God,  breathes  the 
breath  of  life,  and  in  breathing  it  He  makes  those 
bubbles  of  which  all  that  we  call  matter  is  built 
(because  matter  is  not  the  koilon,  but  the  absence 
of  koilon)  ;  and  so  when  He  draws  in  that  mighty 
Breath  the  bubbles  cease  to  be.  The  aether  is  abso- 
lutely unchanged;  it  is  as  it  was  before — virgin — 
after  the  birth  of  matter  from  it;  it  is  quite  un- 
stirred by  all  that  has  happened;  and  because  of 
this  our  Lady  is  hailed  as  immaculate. 

She  is  thus  the  essence  of  the  great  sea  of  matter, 
and  so  she  is  symbolized  as  Aphrodite,  the  Sea- 
Queen,  and  as  Mary,  the  Star  of  the  Sea,  and  in 
pictures  she  is  always  dressed  in  the  blue  of  the 
sea  and  of  the  sky.  Because  it  is  only  by  means 
of  our  passage  through  matter  that  we  evolve,  she 
is  also  to  us  Isis  the  Initiator,  the  Virgin  Mother 


*  See  Occult  Chemistry,  by  Annie  Besant  and  C,  W.  Leadbeater,  p.  110 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  245 

of  whom  the  Christ  in  us  is  born,  the  causal  body, 
the  soul  in  man,  the  Mother  of  God  in  Whom  the 
divine  Spirit  unfolds  itself  within  us,  for  the  symbol 
of  the  womb  is  the  same  as  the  Cup  of  the  Holy 
Grail.  She  is  represented  as  Eve,  descending  into 
matter  and  generation;  as  Mary  Magdalene  while  in 
unnatural  union  with  matter,  and  then  when  she 
rises  clear  of  matter,  once  more  as  Mary  the  Queen 
of  heaven,  assumed  into  life  eternal. 

While  we  are  in  the  lower  stage  of  our  evolution, 
and  subject  to  the  dominion  of  matter,  she  is  to  us 
truly  the  Mater  Dolorosa — the  sorrowful  Mother,  or 
the  Mother  of  Sorrows,  because  all  our  sorrows  and 
troubles  come  to  us  through  our  contact  with 
matter;  but  as  soon  as  we  conquer  matter,  so  soon  as 
for  us  the  triangle  can  never  again  be  obscured  by 
the  square,  then  she  is  for  us  our  Lady  of  Victory, 
the  glory  of  the  Church  triumphant,  the  woman 
clothed  with  the  sun,  and  having  the  moon  under 
her  feet,  and  around  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve 
stars. 

If  we  look  at  it  along  this  line  of  symbolism,  the 
doctrine  of  the  final  drawing  up  of  the  root  of 
matter  into  the  Absolute,  so  that  God  may  be  all  in 
all,  is  what  is  typified  by  the  Assumption  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  The  great  festivals  of  the 
Church  are  all  meant  to  show  us  stage  by  stage  what 
it  is  that  happens  in  the  work  of  the  Great  Archi- 
tect of  the  Universe,  in  the  evolution  of  the  cosmos 
as  well  as  in  the  development  of  man.  In  studying 
these  mysteries  we  must  never  forget  the  rule  of 
the  philosophers  of  old:  "As  above,  so  below. "  So 
that  whatever  we  see  taking  place  in  that  mighty 
world-evolution  we  shall  also  find  repeated  at  his 


246  The  Christian  Festivals 

far  lower  level  in  the  growth  of  man;  and  con- 
versely, if  we  are  able  to  study  the  methods  of 
the  unfoldment  of  the  God  in  man  down  here,  we 
shall  find  that  study  of  invaluable  assistance  in  help- 
ing us  towards  a  comprehension  of  that  infinitely 
more  glorious  development  which  is  God's  will  for 
the  universe  as  a  whole.  And,  learning  thus,  we 
must  not  fail  to  put  the  lesson  into  practice.  As  a 
poet  has  written: 

I   must  become   Queen  Mary, 
And  birth  to  God  must  give, 

If  I  in  heavenly  blessedness 
For   evermore  would  live. 

Note  also,  for  the  better  understanding  of  the 
symbolism,  that  Christ  the  Spirit,  being  deific  in 
nature,  ascends  by  His  own  power  and  volition,  even 
as  of  His  own  will  He  sprang  forth  in  the  beginning 
from  the  bosom  of  the  father;  but  Mary  the  soul  is 
assumed,  drawn  up  by  the  will  of  Him  Who  is  at 
the  same  time  her  Father  and  her  Son;  for  the  first 
Adam  (said  St.  Paul)  was  made  a  living  soul,  but 
the  last  Adam,  the  Christ,  is  Himself  a  quickening 
or  life-giving  Spirit.  So  in  following  Adam,  who 
typifies  the  mind,  all  die;  but  in  Christ  all  are 
made  alive. 

THE  FEMININE  ASPECT  OF  THE  DEITY. 
We  must  realize  also  that  our  highest  conception 
of  Deity  combines  all  that  is  best  of  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  two  sexes.  God,  containing  everything 
within  Himself,  cannot  be  spoken  of  as  exclusively 
male  or  female.  He  cannot  but  have  many  aspects, 
and  in  this  Christian  religion  there  has  been  a  great 
tendency  to  forget  that  cardinal  fact  of  manifold 
manifestation.  In  the  perfection  of  the  Godhead  all 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  247 

that  is  most  beautiful,  all  that  is  most  glorious  in 
human  character  is  shown  forth.  In  that  character 
we  have  two  sets  of  qualities,  some  of  which  we 
attach  in  our  thought  chiefly  to  the  male  or  the  more 
positive  side  of  man,  and  others  which  we  attach 
more  generally  in  our  thought  to  the  feminine  side. 
For  example,  strength,  wisdom,  scientific  direction, 
and  that  destroying  power  which  is  symbolized  in 
the  Hindu  religion  by  Shiva — all  that  we  usually  re- 
gard as  masculine.  But  love,  beauty,  gentleness, 
harmony,  tenderness,  we  consider  as  more  especially 
feminine.  Yet  all  these  characteristics  are  equally 
envisaged  for  us  in  the  Deity,  and  it  is  natural  that 
men  should  have  separated  those  two  aspects  of 
Him,  and  should  have  thought  of  Him  as  Father- 
Mother.  In  all  the  great  religions  of  the  world 
until  quite  recently  those  two  aspects  have  been 
brought  out;  so  that  their  followers  recognized  not 
only  gods  but  also  goddesses.  In  India  we  have 
Parvati,  Uma,  Sarasvati;  in  Greece  we  had  Hera, 
Aphrodite,  Demeter,  Pallas  Athena;  in  Egypt,  Isis 
and  Nephthys;  in  China.  Kwan-yin;  in  Rome,  Juno, 
Venus,  Minerva,  Ceres,  Diana.  In  yet  other  reli- 
gions we  find  Astarte  or  Ashtaroth,  the  queen  of 
heaven.  Images  of  Isis  with  the  Infant  Horus  in 
her  arms  are  exactly  like  those  of  the  Blessed  Virgin 
carrying  the  infant  Jesus ;  indeed,  it  is  said  that  the 
old  Egyptian  statues  are  still  in  use  in  several  Chris- 
tian churches  to-day. 

Ignorant  Christians  accuse  those  old  religions  of 
polytheism — of  the  worship  of  many  gods.  That  is 
simply  a  misunderstanding  of  what  is  meant.  All 
instructed  people  have  always  known  that  there  is 
but  one  God;  but  they  have  also  known  that  that 


248  The  Christian  Festivals 

One  God  manifests  Himself  in  divers  manners,  and 
in  every  respect  as  much  and  as  fully  through  the 
feminine  as  through  the  masculine  body — through 
what  is  called  the  negative  side  of  life  as  well  as 
through  the  positive. 

We  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  Christian 
ideas  sometimes  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  realize 
that  we  have  narrowed  down  the  teaching  of  the 
Christ  so  much  that-  in  many  cases  what  we  now 
hold  is  only  a  travesty  of  what  He  originally  taught. 
We  have  been  brought  up,  as  far  as  religion  goes, 
non-philosophically.  We  have  never  learnt  to  ap- 
preciate the  value  of  comparative  religion  and  com- 
parative mythology.  Those  who  have  been  studying 
it  for  many  years  find  that  it  throws  a  flood  of  light 
on  many  points  which  are  otherwise  incomprehen- 
sible. We  see  that  if  all  be  God,  and  if  there  be  no- 
thing but  God,  then  matter  is  God  as  well  as  spirit, 
and  there  is  a  feminine  and  a  passive  side  or  aspect 
to  the  Deity  as  well  as  a  masculine  side,  and  yet  that 
God  is  One,  and  there  is  no  duplication  of  any  sort 
in  Him. 

All  that  is,  is  God;  but  we  may  see  Him 
through  many  differently  coloured  glasses  and  from 
many  different  points  of  view.  We  may  see  Him 
as  the  mighty  Spirit  informing  all  things;  but  those 
things  which  are  informed — those  forms — they  are 
no  less  God,  for  there  is  nothing  but  God.  And  so 
we  see  what  we  may  call  the  feminine  side  of  the 
Godhead;  and  just  as  the  masculine  side  of  the 
Deity  has  many  manifestations,  so  has  the  feminine 
side  many  manifestations.  So  in  those  earlier  days 
there  were  many  gods  and  goddesses,  each  repre- 
senting an  aspect,  and  the  gods  had  their  priests, 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  249 

and  the  goddesses  their  priestesses,  who  took  just  as 
important  a  part  in  religion  as  did  the  priests.  But 
in  the  last  great  religions,  Christianity  and  Muham- 
madanism  (both  coming  forth  from  Judaism,  which 
ignored  the  feminine  side),  the  World-Teacher  has 
not  chosen  to  make  that  division  prominent;  there- 
fore in  Christianity  and  in  Muhammadanism  we 
have  the  priest  only,  and  the  forces  which  are  poured 
down  through  the  services  of  the  Church,  although 
they  include  all  the  qualities,  are  yet  so  arranged, 
so  directed,  as  to  run  through  the  male  form  only. 

In  Ancient  Egypt  we  divided  those  forces,  because 
that  was  the  will  of  the  World-Teacher  when  He 
founded  the  Egyptian  religion,  so  some  of  them  ran 
through  the  manifestation  of  Osiris,  and  some 
through  the  manifestation  of  Isis.  Therefore  some 
of  them  were  administered  by  the  priests  of  Amen- 
Ra  the  Sun- God,  and  others  by  the  priestesses  of 
Isis.  And  Isis  was  in  every  way  as  deeply  honoured, 
and  considered  as  high  in  every  respect  as  any  of 
the  male  aspects.  She  was  the  great  beneficent  god- 
dess and  mother,  whose  influence  and  love  pervaded 
all  heaven  and  earth, 

It  is  time  that  we  learnt  to  understand  the  synv 
bolism  of  the  Church — learnt  to  see  how  many- 
sided  it  is,  so  that  each  idea  which  is  put  before  us 
calls  up  a  host  of  useful  and  elevating  thoughts,  and 
not  one  only.  Reference  has  already  been  made  to 
that  other  line  of  symbols  in  which  the  different 
stages  in  the  earth-life  of  the  Christ  typify  the  four 
great  Initiations,  and  His  Ascension  represents  the 
fifth.  Into  that  line  also  the  story  of  our  Lady 
enters,  for  in  it  her  Nativity  represents  the  first 
appearance  of  matter  in  connection  with  the  ego 


250  The  Christian  Festivals 

at  his  individualization,  while  the  Annunciation 
stands  for  what  is  commonly  called  conversion,  that 
first  penetration  of  the  soul  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
which  turns  the  man  in  the  right  direction,  and 
makes  the  birth  of  the  Christ  within  him  a  neces- 
sary result,  when  the  long  gestation  period  shall  be 
over.  In  the  same  scheme  the  Assumption  means 
the  full  and  final  drawing  up  of  the  ego  or  soul  into 
the  monad. 

If  we  take  the  other  form  of  the  symbology,  that 
which  refers  to  the  descent  of  the  Christ  into  matter 
as  His  birth,  her  Nativity  is  the  formation  of  Mula- 
prakriti  by  the  leaping  forth  of  the  Second  Person, 
as  before  mentioned,  while  the  Annunciation  is  the 
First  Descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  into  matter.  The 
Holy  Spirit  descends  and  overshadows  the  maria,  the 
seas  of  virgin  matter;  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  over 
the  face  of  the  deep,  and  so  the  Annunciation  is  that 
First  Descent  which  in  other  phaseology  we  call 
the  First  Outpouring,  which  brings  the  chemical 
elements  into  existence.  But  only  after  a  long 
period  of  gestation  is  the  matter  prepared  for  the 
Second  Outpouring  which  comes  from  the  Second 
Person  of  the  Trinity,  and  Christ  is  born  in  matter, 
as  on  Christmas  Day.  Later  still  comes  the  Third 
Outpouring,  when  each  man  individually  receives 
into  himself  the  divine  spark,  the  Monad,  and  so  the 
soul  or  ego  in  man  is  born.  But  that  is  at  a  much 
later  stage. 

In  older  faiths  there  were  several  presentations  of 
the  Feminine  Aspect.  For  the  Romans,  Venus  typi- 
fied it  as  love,  Minerva  as  wisdom,  Ceres  as  the 
earth-mother,  Bellona  as  the  defender.  Our  Lady 
does  not  exactly  correspond  to  any  of  these,  or  rather 


Feasts  of  our  Lady  251 

perhaps,  she  includes  several  of  them  raised  to  a 
higher  plane  of  thought.  The  nearest  approxima- 
tion in  antiquity  to  our  conception  of  her  is  probably 
the  figure  of  Kwan-yin,  the  Mother  of  Mercy  and 
Knowledge,  in  Northern  Buddhism,  as  promulgated 
in  China  and  Tibet.  Our  Lady  is  essentially  Mary 
the  Mother,  the  type  of  love,  devotion  and  pity;  the 
heavenly  wisdom  indeed,  but  most  of  all  Consolatrix 
Afflictorum,  the  consoler,  comforter,  helper  of  all 
who  are  in  trouble,  sorrow,  need,  sickness  or  any 
other  adversity.  For  not  only  is  she  a  channel 
through  which  love  and  devotion  pass  to  Christ,  her 
Son  and  King,  but  she  is  in  turn  a  channel  for  the 
outpouring  of  His  love  in  response. 

So  that,  both  from  the  point  of  view  of  symbolism 
and  from  that  of  factf  we  have  good  reason  to  keep 
the  festivals  of  our  blessed  Lady,  and  to  rejoice  in 
and  be  thankful  for  the  wisdom  and  the  love  that 
have  provided  for  us  this  line  of  approach — thank- 
ful to  Christ  Who  gives  this,  and  to  our  Lady 
through  whom  it  is  given.  So  we  too  can  join  in 
the  world-wide  chorus  of  praise,  and  repeat  the 
words  of  the  Angel  Gabriel:  "Hail,  Mary,  full  of 
grace,  the  Lord  is  with  thee;  blessed  art  thou  among 

Ave   Maria!    thou    whose   name 
All  but  adoring  love  may  daim, 

Yet   may  we  reach  thy   shrine; 
For  He,  thy  Son,  our  Leader,  vows 
To  crown  all  lowly,  lofty  brows 

With  love  and  joy  like  thine. 


CHAPTEE  XIV 

THE  FESTIVAL  OF  THE  ANGELS 
THE  HIGHEE  ANGELS 

The  festival  of  the  holy  Angels  is  usually  called 
Michaelmas  Day,  after  St.  Michael,  the  great  Chief 
of  the  Angels;  but  really  we  celebrate  on  that  occa- 
sion not  only  that  glorious  Prince,  but  the  whole 
angelic  Host;  we  thank  and  praise  God  for  them  and 
for  all  the  wonderful  help  which  they  give  to  us. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  misunderstanding  about  the 
holy  Angels.  The  idea  of  them  is  so  beautiful,  so 
poetical,  that  people  often  think  of  it  as  if  it  were 
only  poetry.  They  talk  about  these  great  and  glori- 
ous beings  somewhat  in  the  same  way  as  they  speak 
about  fairy  legends.  It  is  all  very  beautiful,  but 
it  is  not  quite  real  to  them. 

Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth  than  any 
such  idea  as  that.  The  radiant  glory  of  the  holy 
Angels  is  far  more  real,  and  not  less,  than  the  things 
of  this  physical  plane.  I  suppose  that  sounds  strange, 
overstrained,  even  half -ridiculous ;  but  it  is  not  so  at 
all.  These  things  of  the  physical  plane  which  we 
touch  and  feel  are  real  enough  to  us  now,  while  we 
live  among  them;  but  we  have  only  to  raise  our 
consciousness  just  a  little  into  a  higher  world,  and 
at  once  all  this  gross  reality  is  real  no  longer,  but 
is  airier  than  the  fabric  of  a  dream,  and  we  under- 
stand then  that  the  things  which  are  seen  here  on 
the  physical  plane  are  rightly  described  as  temporal, 
but  the  things  which  are  unseen  down  here  are  far 
more  nearly  eternal.  Those  are  the  realities,  and  not 

252 


Festival  of  the  Angels  253 

these.  The  spirit  Is  the  real  thing,  not  this  body. 
The  body  is  perfectly  real  while  it  lasts,  but  that  is 
only  for  a  few  years;  the  spirit  is  a  divine  spark, 
and  lives  for  ever. 

So  the  holy  Angels  are  in  no  way  less  real  than 
you  and  I.  If  we  are  to  institute  comparisons  be- 
tween mere  vehicles,  theirs  are  much  more  real  and 
more  lasting  than  ours.  Everything  which  is 
material  had  a  beginning  and  will  have  an  end;  but 
that  which  rises  far  above  the  merely  physical  lasts 
indefinitely  longer,  and  is  infinitely  more  glorious. 
If  we  wish  to  understand  these  higher  things,  we 
must  first  of  all  get  that  idea  well  into  our  heads, 
that  the  higher  we  can  raise  our  consciousness  the 
nearer  we  get  to  the  true  reality.  There  is  One 
only  Who  is  eternal  beyond  all  eternity,  and  that  is 
God  alone;  but  these  His  grander,  brighter,  nobler 
creatures  are  far  longer-lived,  far  more  vivid,  than 
the  consciousness  which  we  have  down  here;  so  we 
must  try  to  understand  something  of  this  great 
Angel  kingdom. 

Anyone  who  has  studied  the  discoveries  of  modern 
science  knows  that  there  is  a  definite  line  of  evolu- 
tion coming  up  through  the  different  kingdoms  of 
nature.  The  mineral  kingdom  is  generally  accounted 
the  lowest;  some  students  know  that  there  are  others 
preceding  even  that  in  evolution,  but  we  need  not  go 
into  that  matter  at  the  moment.  The  mineral 
kingdom  gradually  leads  up  to  the  beginnings  of  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  and  in  the  same  way  the  vege- 
table kingdom  also  leads  up  to  the  beginnings  of  the 
animal  kingdom.  There  are  intermediate  organisms 
which  it  is  difficult  to  assign  with  certainty  to  either 
kingdom.  In  their  earlier  stages  it  is  often  impos- 


254  The  Christian  Festivals 

sible  to  distinguish  the  vegetable  from  the  lower 
animal,  and  in  the  same  way  there  are  organisms 
hovering  on  the  edge  of  vegetable  life  which  are 
almost  mineral;  so  these  kingdoms  form  a  steadily- 
rising  sequence. 

Man  is  usually  classified  as  being  at  the  head  oi 
the  animal  kingdom;  but  in  our  studies  of  the  inner 
life  we  count  him,  for  certain  good  reasons,  as  a 
separate  kingdom.  The  qualifications  in  various 
ways  which  he  possesses  differentiate  him  from  even 
the  highest  of  the  animal  kingdom,  though  from  the 
animal  there  is  a  steady  progress  up  to  the  human. 
There  is  no  break  in  this  system  of  evolution,  and 
so  "from  the  very  lowest  life  we  can  lead  up  to  our 
own  life.  Are  we  then  the  end  of  everything?  Is 
there  no  life  as  much  higher  than  ours  as  ours  is 
higher  than  the  animal,  as  the  animal  is  higher  than 
the  mineral?  Investigation  shows  us  that  there  is 
a  life  higher  than  ours — that  there  is  a  kingdom 
above  the  human  kingdom  in  precisely  the  same  way 
as  the  human  is  above  the  animal,  and  the  animal 
above  the  vegetable — a  kingdom  higher  in  evolution 
than  our  own. 

In  English  we  call  it  the  Angel  kingdom.  The 
philosophers  of  that  wonderful  country,  India,  have 
studied  these  things  for  thousands  of  years  before 
any  of  us  did,  because  their  civilization  is  very  much 
older  than  our  own.  They  know  all  about  that 
higher  kingdom,  and  they  give  to  its  members  the 
name  of  Devas.  Deva  is  a  Sanskrit  word  from  which 
is  derived  our  word  "divine."  It  is  connected  with 
all  which  is  high  and  God-]  ike.  The  Devas  are  the 
Shining  Ones — a  very  natural  name  for  men  who 
can  see  them  to  give  to  them,  because  all  this  higher 


Festival  of  the  Angels  255 

world  is  to  our  world  as  light  is  to  darkness.  If  by 
chance  we  become  able  for  a  moment  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  matter  of  that  higher  world,  to  us  it 
appears  as  light,  and  if  from  that  higher  world  we 
look  down  into  the  matter  of  this,  we  see  it  as  com- 
parative darkness.  "We  must  realize  that  the  Angel 
kingdom  is  in  every  way  as  real  as  our  own,  or  as 
the  animal  kingdom  which  is  below  our  own.  Men 
may  think:  "We  can  see  the  animals;  why  can  we 
not  see  the  Angels?  The  animals  belong  to  a  lower 
kingdom  than  we,  but  they  can  see  us ;  if  they  can  see 
something  belonging  to  a  higher  kingdom,  why  can- 
not we?" 

First  of  all,  we  can.  There  are  a  great  many  men 
who  have  seen  members  of  the  Angelic  kingdom,  al- 
though the  lowest  matter  to  which  they  descend  is 
higher  than  this  of  our  physical  world.  There  are 
many  stages  and  varieties  of  matter  even  down  here; 
we  have  the  solid,  the  liquid,  the  gaseous.  Sir  Wil- 
liam Grookes  spoke  of  radiant  matter — matter  which 
he  thought  of  as  in  a  fourth  state,  higher  than  the 
gaseous.  There  is  matter  which  eludes  our  senses, 
not  because  it  is  in  any  sense  unreal  or  even  imma- 
terial, but  because  our  senses  are  imperfect,  and  reach 
only  a  small  part  of  what  we  know  to  exist.  For 
example,  we  can  see  solid  matter,  and  liquid  matter 
also  unless  it  is  perfectly  clear;  but  we  can  rarely 
see  gas,  or  anything  in  a  gaseous  condition.  There 
are  some  gases,  like  chlorine,  which  we  can  see  by 
their  colour,  but  usually  we  are  aware  of  gas  in 
another  way,  by  scent  or  by  our  feeling  when  breath- 
ing it.  That  which  is  higher  than  gas  is  still  more 
beyond  our  physical  senses,  but  we  should  be  mak- 
ing a  vital  mistake — vital,  that  is,  to  the  compre- 


256  The  Christian  Festivals 

hension  of  things— if  we  suppose  it  to  be  unreal. 
These  Angels  have  bodies,  and  those  bodies  are  built 
of  matter  as  ours  are;  only  they  happen  to  be  built 
of  higher  matter,  answering  only  to  higher  vibrations. 
But  we  also  have  within  ourselves  a  body  of  finer 
matter,  a  higher  vehicle  which  can  be  cultivated, 
and  its  senses  developed,  just  as  the  physical  senses 
of  a  man  can  be  developed  to  a  much  greater  degree 
of  fineness  than  most  of  us  possess. 

I  remember  once  visiting  the  astronomer  in  charge 
at  one  of  our  great  universities.  He  showed  me  a 
number  of  photographs,  and  he  said  to  me:  "You 
see  in  that  photograph  of  a  spectrum  of  a  star  six 
lighter  lines."  I  looked  at  that  photograph,  but  I 
could  not  distinguish  them,  and  presently  I  mus- 
tered up  courage  to  say  so  to  the  great  man.  "Of 
course  not,"  he  replied,  "I  forgot;  it  took  me  two 
years  to  learn  to  see  them."  I  had  the  photographs 
in  my  hands,  but  my  eyes  were  uncultivated  for  this 
finer  sight,  so  that  I  could  not  see  what  to  his  trained 
eye  was  clearly  visible.  So  even  our  physical  senses 
vary  greatly  according  to  whether  they  are  educated 
or  not.  The  senses  of  our  higher  body  can  also  be 
trained  to  see  things  belonging  to  these  higher 
worlds.  People  sometimes  catch  a  glimpse  of  them 
when  they  are  in  an  exalted  condition,  or  in  deep 
vision.  We  read,  for  example,  that  the  great  saints 
had  visions  of  Angels.  We  must  not  suppose  that 
these  men  were  mere  hysterical  dreamers;  the  fact 
is  that  their  higher  consciousness  was  for  the  moment 
opened,  so  that  they  saw  what  under  normal  condi- 
tions would  have  remained  invisible  to  them.  We 
should  try  to  realize  then  that  the  Angels  are  a 
great  and  glorious  reality,  and  that  they  are  close 


Festival  of  the  Angels  257 

about  us  all  the  time ;  and  yet,  though  belief  in  their 
existence  is  to  be  found  in  every  religion  (it  is  cer- 
tainly very  prominent  in  the  Catholic  Faith,  though 
perhaps  in  the  later  sects  of  Christianity  it  has  been 
allowed  to  fall  somewhat  into  the  background)  little 
is  really  known  about  them. 

I  suppose  that  most  people,  when  they  think  of 
Angels,  regard  them  as  a  host  of  glorious  Spirits, 
human  in  form,  though  usually  bearing  huge  wings 
on  their  shoulders,  who  spend  their  time  either  in 
perpetual  adoration  before  the  'Throne  of  God,  or 
in  travelling  on  errands  for  Him,  mostly  connected 
with  the  progress  of  the  human  race,  or  the  rescue 
of  individuals  from  positions  of  misery  or  danger. 
There  is  no  particular  exception  to  be  taken  to 
that  point  of  view,  and  it  is  well  enough  for  the 
general  public  who  are  not  interested  in  exact 
detail.  But  there  is  a  good  deal  more  than  that 
which  may  be  known  with  regard  to  this  wonderful 
order  of  beings ;  and  it  is  perhaps  as  well  that  intelli- 
gent members  of  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  should 
be  somewhat  more  precise  in  their  knowledge  of  this 
subject. 

Though  the  Angelic  kingdom  is  next  above  the 
human,  it  is  not  necessarily  the  next  stage  in  our 
evolution.  Just  as  not  all  the  creatures  which  are 
classified  as  belonging  to  the  animal  kingdom  will 
eventually  become  human,  so  not  by  any  means  all 
human  beings  will  ever  join  the  great  kingdom  of 
the  holy  Angels.  All  who  are  now  human  will  one 
day  reach  the  end,  the  summit  of  human  develop- 
ment, and  will  become  super-human;  but  there  are 
many  other  lines  of  evolution  into  which  man  may 


258  The  Christian  Festivals 

pass  other  than   this  of  the    angelic    host.        (See 
Invisible  Helpers,  chap,  xvii.) 

This  great  Angelic  kingdom  has  its  own  races,  its 
varied  degrees  of  development,  its  different  lines  of 
evolution,  just  as  is  the  case  with  every  other  king- 
dom in  nature.  There  are  Angels  who  do  not  stand 
higher  in  evolution  than  some  of  the  best  of  men; 
and  there  are  others  whose  splendour  seems  to  us 
to  include  all  that  we  can  image  of  Divinity.  We 
have  no  space  in  such  a  book  as  this  to  attempt  a 
detailed  account,  but  we  may  note  that  the  wording 
of  our  Liturgy  recalls  to  us  at  every  eucharistic  ser- 
vice a  ninefold  classification  which  has  been  widely 
accepted  in  the  early  Christian  Church — that  which 
divides  them  into  Angels,  Archangels,  Cherubim, 
Seraphim,  Thrones,  Dominations,  Princedoms, 
Virtues  and  Powers.  The  Jewish  arrangement, 
which  has  also  largely  been  adopted  in  the  Christian 
Church,  divides  them  into  seven  great  types,  corres- 
ponding to  the  Rays.  Even  the  names  of  those 
Great  Ones  Who  stand  at  the  head  of  each  of  these 
seven  types  are  given  to  us  in  ancient  writings, 
where  they  appear  as  Michael,  Gabriel,  Raphael, 
Uriel,  Chamuel,  Jophiel,  and  Zadkiel. 

In  the  nine-fold  classification  two  other  types  are 
added  which  are  cosmic — that  is  to  say,  they  extend 
beyond  the  limits  of  our  chain  of  worlds,  perhaps 
even  beyond  our  solar  system.  To  each  of  these  types 
different  characteristics  are  assigned,  and  in  each  of 
these  great  Orders  of  Angels  there  are  many  levels. 
We  divide  our  human  kingdom  into  various  races — 
the  Aryan,  the  Mongolian,  the  Semitic  and  so  on ;  but 
we  all  recognize  that  in  each  of  these  races  there  are 
highly  developed  people  and  people  of  comparatively 


Festival  of  the  Angels  259 

low  development.  There  are  kings  and  princes  and 
nobility  and  also  there  are  peasants;  but  they  are 
all  of  the  same  race.  Just  in  the  same  way  in  the 
Orders  of  the  Angels  there  are  the  great  leaders,  and 
there  are  others  who  are  not  so  highly  developed; 
for  the  lower  levels  of  the  various  Orders  have  astral 
bodies,  and  are  still  subject  to  the  influence  of  desire. 
It  is  true  that  evil  of  intention  is  no  longer  possible 
for  any  of  the  angelic  host,  but  there  are  many  who 
in  intellect  and  general  advancement  are  but  little 
beyond  ourselves. 

Among  the  Buddhists  and  the  Hindus  we  find  a 
great  four-fold  grouping  which  is  certainly  readily 
distinguishable  in  the  case  of  those  Angels  who  come 
most  into  contact  with  humanity.  These  different 
classifications  are  by  no  means  mutually  exclusive, 
but  may  well  refer  to  different  parts  or  tribes  in  so 
vast  a  kingdom,  or  even  to  the  same  divisions  looked 
at  from  a  different  point  of  view.  We  shall  have, 
however,  but  a  very  truncated  and  partial  idea  of 
this  glorious  kingdom  if  we  think  of  its  members 
as  always  occupied  either  in  fruitlessly  praising  the 
Deity  or  in  running  errands  connected  with  the 
human  race.  The  Angels  are  a  manifestation  of  the 
Divine  Life  at  a  certain  high  stage  of  its  evolution, 
and  they  are  primarily  concerned,  just  as  we  are, 
with  the  business  of  that  evolution.  They  are  living 
their  own  lives,  and  those  lives  are  a  far  more 
splendid  epiphany  of  Deity  than  are  most  of 
ours.  No  doubt  they  often  praise  God,  as  we 
ourselves  do  in  our  churches;  but  just  as  we 
try  mainly  to  show  forth  our  love  to  God  by 
living  in  the  world  as  He  would  have  us  live, 
so  do  they  at  their  superior  level  show  best  their 


260  The  Christian  Festivals 

love  and  devotion  to  Him  by  carrying  out  to  their 
utmost  that  work  which  He  has  given  them  to  do. 

It  would  be  foolish  of  us  to  think  of  that  work  as 
in  any  way  specially  concerned  with  us,  though,  no 
doubt,  such  a  thought  is  flattering  to  our  pride,  and 
fits  in  readily  with  the  self-cent  redness  of  humanity 
as  a  whole.  We  shall  perhaps  arrive  at  a  more 
rational  understanding  if  we  think  of  our  own 
attitude  towards  the  kingdoms  below  us — the  animal 
and  the  vegetable.  We  do  not  spend  the  whole 
of  our  lives  in  thinking  how  we  can  do  good  to 
these  lower  kingdoms  or  help  on  their  evolution ; 
the  average  man  is  far  more  concerned  in  thinking 
how  he  can  make  these  lower  creatures  serve  him, 
and  how  much  in  one  way  or  other  he  can  make  out 
of  them.  Our  relations  with  wild  animals  are,  in 
fact,  of  the  most  horrible  description;  and  they  may 
wrell  be  excused  if  they  regard  us  not  as  angels  but 
as  devils. 

Of  course  it  would  be  quite  unthinkable  that 
the  angelic  kingdom  should  endeavour  in  any 
such  way  to  exploit  us  (though  dead  men  sometimes 
do)  ;  but  we  may  well  suppose  that  it  is,  on  the 
whole,  content  to  go  the  way  of  its  own  evolution  with- 
out interfering  unnecessarily  with  ours.  There  are 
no  doubt,  individual  cases  of  interference;  some- 
times an  Angel  sees  a  man  in  trouble  or  difficulty  in 
which  he  thinks  that  he  can  give  some  help,  and  he 
promptly  gives  it,  as  we  should  to  a  wild  animal. 

Such  occasions,  however,  must  always  be  rare;  for 
we  must  remember  that  the  average  Angel  even  of 
the  less  exalted  type  is,  as  compared  with  the  average 
man,  much  in  the  position  that  a  College  professor 
would  be  with  regard  to  a  little  child  in  the  baby  or 


Festival  of  the  Angels  261 

primer  class.  The  professor  is  there  for  the 
helping  of  students;  but  the  child  in  the  primer 
class  must  develop  to  a  great  extent,  and  learn 
a  great  deal  from  other  teachers  before  he  will 
be  able  to  take  advantage  of  the  help  that  the  pro- 
fessor can  best  give.  Under  exceptional  circum- 
stances that  professor  might  help  the  child  through  a 
sum  or  a  reading  lesson;  but  we  can  all  see  that  the 
work  of  education  as  a  whole  is  better  done  when 
the  professor  attends  to  his  own  business,  and  leaves 
the  tiny  child  to  acquire  his  learning  through  the 
channels  especially  appointed  for  him  at  his  level. 

At  a  later  stage  that  primer-class  child  will  no 
doubt  come  into  touch  with  the  professor  and  learn 
much  from  him;  and  in  precisely  the  same  way, 
when  humanity  has  evolved  much  further  along  its 
path  it  will  come  into  far  closer  relation  with  these 
great  angelic  hosts,  and  such  contiguity  will  be 
greatly  to  its  advantage.  Something  of  the  method 
of  that  close  union  may  be  read  by  those  who  wish 
in  the  book  Man,  Whence,  How  and  Whither,  in  which 
it  is  described  how  in  a  future,  not  far  distant, 
great  Angels  will  take  a  visible  and  leading  part 
in  the  Church  services  of  those  days,  and  will  gather 
together  the  devotion  of  the  members  of  the  congre- 
gation and  pour  it  upwards  in  a  mighty  fountain  to 
the  feet  of  the  Solar  Deity  Himself.  They  will  also 
act  as  the  recipients  and  distributors  of  the  tremen- 
dous spiritual  influence  or  grace  which  He  in  re- 
sponse outpours  upon  these  devotees. 

They  are  doing  work  of  that  nature  even  now, 
though  somewhat  less  obviously.  I  have  already 
mentioned  that  all  the  devotion  and  all  the  love 
which  have  been  outpoured  through  many  centuries 


262  The  Christian  Festivals 

at  the  feet  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  are  gathered 
up  by  her,  now  that  she  is  a  great  Angel,  and  for- 
warded to  the  Solar  Deity,  Who  very  surely  accepts 
and  responds.  In  the  first  volume  of  this  series, 
The  Science  of  the  Sacraments,  I  have  explained 
something  of  the  wondrous  part  which  the  Angels 
play  in  the  greatest  of  our  Church  services.  Thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  earnest  Christians  have  for 
the  last  twenty  centuries  been  deriving  the  fullest 
spiritual  help  and  upliftment  from  the  Holy 
Eucharist  without  knowing  that  they  owe  the  possi- 
bility of  that  most  glorious  service  to  the  assistance 
so  gladly  and  patiently  given  by  the  holy  Angels  to 
an  uncomprehending  world.  They  come  then  be- 
cause they  can  arrange  for  us  a  certain  kind  of  ser- 
vice which  without  them  we  could  not  achieve,  and 
because  they  know  that  when  a  man  attends  such  a 
service  and  joins  heartily  in  praise  and  worship,  he 
is  in  an  impressionable  attitude,  and  can  be  reached 
and  touched;  good  can  be  done  to  him  and  power 
poured  forth  upon  him. 

When  a  man  enters  the  church,  he  comes  into 
the  presence  of  our  Lord  enthroned  upon  His 
altar;  and  just  because  of  that  fact  he  also  comes 
into  the  presence  of  a  great  host  of  adoring 
Angels.  How  much  they  can  do  for  him  depends 
upon  the  extent  to  which  he  opens  his  heart 
to  their  influence,  and  upon  his  physical,  moral 
and  mental  condition.  Some  of  us  feel  such  in- 
fluences easily  and  keenly,  because  we  have  sharpened 
our  senses  in  that  particular  direction;  others 
become  aware  of  them  only  vaguely  and  uncertainly; 
but  increasing  numbers  of  people  are  becoming  con- 
scious of  them.  Man  is  growing  by  slow  degrees  to 


Festival  of  the  Angels  263 

be  the  kind  of  creature  that  'Angels  can  help,  and 
as  he  advances  further  into  their  sphere  he  will  be 
more  cognizant  of  their  gracious  response  and 
interest. 

We  have  an  unequalled  opportunity  to  try  to  see. 
them,  or  at  least  to  sense  their  presence  for  our- 
selves, because  although  I  think  all  Christians  are 
more  or  less  vaguely  aware  that  the  Angels  attend 
upon  certain  services  of  the  Church  in  order  to  help, 
we  have  the  advantage  of  a  little  more  definite  in- 
formation than  is  usually  given.  We  may  know 
exactly  at  what  point  these  great  ones  arrive,  and 
therefore  we  may  be  watching  for  them,  and  I 
should  strongly  advise  that  we  should  all  of  us 
make  it  a  practice  to  try  to  be  aware  of  such  pre- 
sences. There  is  a  vast  amount  of  help  and  strength 
and  comfort  to  be  obtained  from  them,  and  if  we 
know  at  what  time  they  may  be  expected  we  are 
readily  able  to  attune  our  minds  to  obtain  that 
benefit.  The  presence  of  the  Angels  should  not  be 
for  us  vague,  uncertain  or  hypothetical;  we  should 
make  up  our  minds  that  it  is  a  perfectly 
definite  reality,  and  although  we  may  not  all 
actually  be  able  to  see  it,  any  more  than  we  can  see 
an  electric  current,  yet  it  is  just  as  real  as  an  electric 
current,  and  its  effects  may  be  appreciated  by  those 
who  are  capable  of  sensing  them. 

Great  hosts  of  Angels  attend  the  celebration  of  the 
Eucharist.  Why?  Most  of  them  because  they 
enjoy  the  wonderful  vibrations  which  are  radiated 
forth  from  the  consecrated  Host.  They  also  enjoy 
the  vibrations  of  devotion  and  love  which  we  send 
up  in  our  adoration,  and  they  come  to  bathe  in  this 
not  only  because  they  enjoy  it,  but  because  they 


264  The  Christian  Festivals 

know  it  to  be  good  for  them,  to  be  of  great  advan- 
tage to  their  evolution.  But  besides  those  there  are 
other  and  greater  Angels  who  come  in  order  to  take 
a  definite  part  in  the  work.  The  Holy  Eucharist 
is  not  celebrated  for  our  sake,  however  much  benefit 
we  may  derive  from  it.  We  come  not  in  order  to 
receive,  but  chiefly  in  order  to  give.  We  come  be- 
cause this  is  the  method  which  Christ  has  ordained 
for  the  radiation  of  spiritual  force  abroad  upon  His 
world,  and  we  come  here  to  help  in  this  distribution 
of  divine  energy.  Incidentally  we  get  a  great  deal 
for  ourselves,  but  that  is  not  our  main  object. 

The  Angels  come — those  greater  ones — in  order  to 
make  all  this  possible  for  us.  At  the  end  of  the 
Asperges  we  ask  that  God  shall  send  His  Angel  to 
help  us  and  be  with  us.  In  answer  to  that  call  comes 
the  Angel  of  the  Eucharist  who  builds  the  edifice  out 
of  our  devotion  and  our  feeling,  and  out  of  the 
energy  that  is  thrown  out  by  the  musical  part  of  the 
service.  Greater  than  he  are  the  Angels  who  come 
when  we  send  out  the  call  for  them  just  before  the 
Sanctus — when  the  priest  or  the  bishop,  having 
called  upon  us  to  lift  up  our  hearts  and  to  give 
thanks  unto  God,  proceeds  further  to  say  that  with 
the  holy  Angels  (enumerating  the  different  kinds)  we 
take  our  part.  That  is  the  traditional  call  to  them 
and  the  very  melody  to  which  we  sing,  * '  Lift  up  your 
hearts,"  "We  lift  them  up  unto  the  Lord"  is  almost 
two  thousand  years  old,  if  not  quite.  It  goes  back 
to  the  very  earliest  ages  in  which  such  music  was 
used  in  the  Church. 

They  come  and  take  part  in  the  service;  the  work 
which  they  do,  when  the  celebrant  tells  them  for 
whom  we  wish  to  offer  this  service,  was  explained  in 


Festival  of  the  Angels  265 

the  previous  volume.  The  Directing  Angel,  the 
Angel  of  the  First  Ray,  apportions  to  the  different 
representatives  of  the  other  Rays  the  block  of  force 
which  they  shall  take  away  and  apply  to  the  object 
named.  We  have  some  objects  which  are  always 
enumerated — George  our  King,  our  Presiding 
Bishop,  our  bishops,  clergy  and  laity — and  each  of 
these  definitely  receives  something.  Of  course  we 
must  not  think  for  a  moment  that  it  is  only  we  who 
have  such  privileges.  In  all  Christian  Churches 
where  the  link  of  the  apostolic  succession  has  been 
made,  the  same  arrangement  exists;  indeed  we  must 
not  think  of  it  as  confined  to  Christianity  at  all. 
All  religions  exist  for  the  helping  of  the  world,  and 
in  almost  all  of  them  some  provision  is  made  for 
the  reception  and  distribution  of  spiritual  force. 
This  work  of  the  Angels  is  made  easier  when  the 
congregation  understands  what  is  being  done  and 
assists  intelligently  by  thought.  Therefore  we  should 
make  it  our  business  to  know  and  to  comprehend,  so 
that  we  may  help  the  Angels  in  the  work  which  they 
have  to  do. 

These  glorious  Spirits  are  of  so  many  different 
kinds  that  it  is  scarcely  feasible  to  attempt  any 
description  of  them.  Many  of  them  are  of  human 
form,  though  usually  of  far  more  than  human  stature. 
Their  colours,  their  radiance,  their  iridescence  are 
wonderful  beyond  all  words;  they  look  upon  us  with 
glorious  starry  eyes,  filled  with  eternal  peace.  In 
them  the  aura  is  so  much  larger,  so  far  more  mag- 
nificent than  with  us,  that  from  a  distance  often 
they  appear  mere  spheres  of  flashing  light.  I  have 
never  seen  them  with  wings;  indeed,  I  think  that 
the  wings  worn  by  the  angels  of  art  and  of  poetry 


266  &he  Christian  Festivals 

must  always  be  symbolical  of  their  various  powers, 
as  they  so  evidently  are  in  some  of  the  scriptural 
descriptions.  This  supposition  is  further  borne  out 
by  the  fact  that  even  in  the  biblical  story,  when  the 
Angel  of  the  Lord  comes  to  visit  His  people  (such 
as  Abraham,  Peter  and  others)  he  is  usually  taken 
for  a  man,  which  would  hardly  be  possible  if  he 
wore  a  pair  of  gigantic  wings. 

The  aura  of  the  great  Angel  is  far  more  exten- 
sive and  flexible  than  ours;  he  expresses  himself 
simultaneously  in  thought-forms  of  marvellously 
beautiful  shapes,  in  coruscations  of  glorious  colour 
and  in  a  wealth  of  loveliest  music.  For  him  a  smile 
of  greeting  would  be  a  wondrous  brightening  of 
colour  and  a  rush  of  harmonious  sound;  a  speech 
delivered  by  one  of  these  valiant  Sons  of  God  would 
be  a  magnificent  oratorio;  a  conversation  between 
two  great  Angels  would  be  like  a  mighty  fugue,  in 
which  motif  answered  to  motif,  echoing  in  bewilder- 
ing cataracts  of  harmony,  accompanied  by 
kaleidoscopic  changes  of  glowing  hues,  and  scintil- 
lations of  rainbow  light.  There  are  Angels  who 
live  in  and  express  themselves  by  what  to  us  are  per- 
fumes and  fragrances — though  to  use  such  words 
seems  to  degrade,  to  materialize  the  exquisite  emana- 
tions in  which  they  revel  so  joyously. 

There  are  always  Angels  hovering  round  the 
Reserved  Host,  but  when  the  more  vivid  glow  begins 
at  the  Elevation  or  Benediction  we  see  a  curious 
and  most  beautiful  addition  to  the  company,  for  a 
number  of  very  small  Angels  circle  about  it.  Most 
members  of  the  angelic  host  are  at  least  of  ordi- 
nary human  size,  and  many  of  them  are  much 
greater  than  men ;  but  here  is  a  tribe  of  tiny  cherubs 


Festival  of  the  Angels  267 

quite  like  some  of  those  painted  by  Titian  or  Michael 
Angelo,  except  that  1  have  never  seen  any  of  them 
with  wings.  They  are  small  and  wonderfully  perfect 
creatures — not  at  all  unlike  certain  classes  of  nature- 
spirits,  except  that  they  are  far  more  radiant  and 
undoubtedly  angelic  in  type ;  child-like  and  yet  some- 
how very,  very  old.  They  give  an  impression  of 
eternal  shining  which  it  is  impossible  to  put  into 
words;  they  are  like  birds  of  paradise  in  the  splen- 
dour of  their  colour,  beings  of  living  light;  and  they 
wheel  or  hover  in  an  attitude  of  adoration,  twining 
in  and  out  as  they  move,  making  a  kind  of  hollow 
sphere  about  the  Host — a  sphere  perhaps  twenty 
feet  in  diameter.  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  them 
come  so  low  as  to  have  an  astral  body;  most  of 
them  can  be  distinguished  only  by  the  sight  of  the 
causal  body,  which  of  course  means  that  their 
densest  vehicle  is  built  of  matter  belonging  to  the 
mental  world.  They  are  of  great  value  in  the  service, 
for  they  reflect  and  transmute  some  of  the  mighty 
forces  employed,  and  call  out  great  volumes  of 
others;  so  a  swirl  of  indescribable  activity  is  always 
going  on  within  and  around  their  sphere. 

There  is  also  another  kind  of  these  tiny  creatures 
to  whom  the  title  of  Angel  is  less  appropriate.  They 
are  equally  graceful  and  beautiful  in  their  way,  but 
in  reality  they  belong  to  the  kingdom  of  the  elves  or 
nature  spirits.  They  do  not  express  themselves  by 
means  of  perfumes,  but  they  live  by  and  on  such 
emanations,  and  so  are  always  to  be  found  where 
fragrance  is  being  disseminated.  There  are  many 
varieties,  some  feeding  upon  coarse  and  loathsome 
odours,  and  others  only  upon  those  which  are  deli- 
cate and  refined.  Among  them  are  a  few  types 


268  The  Christian  Festivals 

which  are  especially  attracted  by  the  smell  of  incense, 
and  are  always  to  be  found  where  it  is  burnt.  When 
the  priest  censes  the  altar  and  thus  creates  a  mag- 
netic field,  he  encloses  within  it  a  number  of  these 
delightful  little  elves,  and  they  absorb  a  great  deal 
of  the  energy  which  is  accumulated  there,  and  be- 
come valuable  agents  in  its  distribution  at  the  proper 
time. 

The  Greek  word  aggelos  means  a  messenger;  but 
sometimes  in  our  Scripture  the  English  word 
"angel"  is  used  in  quite  a  different  sense,  where  to 
our  thinking  the  word  "spirit"  would  perhaps  be 
more  appropriate.  An  instance  occurs  in  the  Gospel 
for  St.  Michael's  Day,  when  the  Christ  is  reported 
as  saying  of  the  pure  in  heart  who  have  turned  away 
from  evil  and  become  as  little  children,  that  "in 
heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  My 
Father  Who  is  in  heaven."  Here,  if  He  is  cor- 
rectly reported,  He  can  only  be  speaking  of  the 
spirit  in  the  man,  which  because  of  the  man's  purity 
is  able  to  recognize  its  unity  with  the  Great  Spirit, 
and  thus  ever  to  behold  the  face  of  its  Father. 

We  must  also  hold  in  affectionate  remembrance  the 
great  class  of  thought-angels,  of  whom  so  many  are 
specially  connected  with  the  services  of  the  Church. 
The  greatest  of  all  of  these  is  the  mighty  Angel  of 
the  Presence,  who  comes  every  time  the  Holy 
Eucharist  is  celebrated,  and  consummates  for  us  that 
tremendous  sacrifice;  for  when,  fulfilling  the  duties 
of  his  holy  office,  the  priest  pronounces  the  words  of 
power,  that  Angel  flashes  forth,  and  by  his  touch  of 
fire  performs  that  wondrous  transmutation  which  is 
at  the  same  time  the  greatest  of  all  miracles  and  the 
most  natural,  touching  and  intimate  expression  of  the 


Festival  of  the  Angels  269 

Divine  Love.  He  is  in  very  truth  a  thought-form 
of  the  Lord  Christ  Himself,  a  projection  of  that 
wondrous  Consciousness. 

There  is  no  greater  joy  for  His  holy  Angels 
than  to  follow  the  lightning  of  that  thought,  and  to 
bathe  in  that  river  of  life,  that  ineffable  outpouring 
of  spiritual  influence.  And  so  it  comes  that  at  every 
Eucharist,  at  every  Benediction  Service,  the  congre- 
gation is  far  more  numerous  than  we  can  see  with 
physical  eyes;  and  when  we  celebrate  these  holy 
mysteries,  the  squadrons  of  the  heavenly  host  gather 
about  us  here  and  now.  Another  manifestation  of 
the  power  of  the  thought-angel  occurs  in  connection 
with  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism.  The  priest  makes 
a  sort  of  cuirass  of  light  before  and  behind  the 
infant;  and  when  in  this  way  the  thought-form  is 
built,  the  power  from  on  high  pours  down  into  it, 
and  the  priest  then  carefully  seals  it.  This  thought- 
form,  thus  ensouled  by  the  outpouring  of  divine 
power,  becames  a  veritable  guardian  angel  for  the 
child,  and  greatly  assists  the  ego  in  gaining  control 
of  his  new  vehicles. 

But  it  is  not  only  by  the  powers  from  on  high 
that  these  helpful  thought-forms  can  be  made.  At 
an  infinitely  lower  level  we  ourselves  can,  and  do, 
constantly  make  useful  thought-forms  which  are,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  guardian  angels  for  those 
to  whom  they  are  sent.  Whenever  we  pour  out  a 
strong  thought  of  love,  we  thereby  manufacture  a 
form  which  is  projected  towards  the  person  of  whom 
we  have  thought.  A  constant  succession  of  such 
thoughts  will  surround  our  friends  with  a  veritable 
cloud  of  helpful  influence;  and  such  a  cloud  almost 
always  attracts  the  attention  of  some  passing  Angel, 


270  The  Christian  Festivals 

who  will  then  interest  himself  in  its  distribution  and 
application  to  the  needs  of  the  person  concerned. 
This  is  only  one  of  many  ways  in  which  even  the 
lower  orders  of  the  angelic  hosts  are  ready  to  assist 
us  as  soon  as  we  show  ourselves  worthy  of  such 
assistance — or  (which  is  perhaps  the  same  thing  in 
other  words)  as  soon  as  we  are  capable  of  receiving 
it.  In  connection  with  our  earth  the  Angels  fill  many 
and  varied  positions.  I  have  written  elsewhere  of 
those  who  inhabit  and  guard  a  certain  sacred  moun- 
tain in  Ireland;*  there  are  many  other  similarly 
guarded  spots  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  at 
such  points  the  Angel  hosts  are  very  near  for  those 
who  have  eyes  to  see  or  hearts  to  feel.  We  are 
familiar  with  the  idea  expressed  in  our  hymn: 
"All  nature  is  to  God  a  glorious  garment  rare;" 
but  perhaps  it  has  not  yet  occurred  to  us  that  every 
glorious  landscape  is  itself  the  garment  of  an  Angel, 
who  is  part  of  God.  Those  who  comprehend  the 
message  of  nature,  those  who  are  truly  in  sympathy 
with  her,  will  understand  this  wondrous  truth;  in 
ancient  Greece  they  knew  it  well,  but  in  these  later 
days  men  have  become  very  material,  and  few  are 
those  who  can  truly  feel  and  see. 

THE  LOWER  ANGELS 

The  class  of  Angel  who  ensouls  a  landscape,  a 
wood  or  moor,  though  by  no  means  so  highly 
developed  as  some  of  those  of  whom  I  have  already 
spoken,  is  yet  in  certain  ways  a  type  further  removed 
from  humanity  and  less  easy  for  us  to  comprehend. 
Our  knowledge  of  this  mighty  kingdom  next  above 
our  own  is  as  yet  imperfect  in  so  many  respects  that 
we  cannot  even  say  what  stages  of  evolution  lie 
either  behind  or  before  this  most  interesting  division 

*The  Hidden  Side  of  Things,  vol.  i,  p.  136, 


Festival  of  the  Angels  271 

of  the  heavenly  host;  we  do  not  know  how  a  par- 
ticular Angel  is  appointed  to  take  charge  of  this 
spot  or  of  that;  nor  are  we  certain  by  whom  or  on 
what  principle  the  limits  of  his  jurisdiction  are 
defined. 

This  at  least  we  know — that  this  wondrous  and 
majestic  universe  is  part  of  the  manifestation  of  the 
Deity  on  the  physical  plane;  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  each  planet  is  the  body  of  a  great  planetary 
Angel,  who  lives  his  life  in  it  and  expresses  himself 
through  it  as  we  do  through  our  bodies,  though  we 
can  have  but  little  idea  of  the  methods  or  possi- 
bilities of  such  life.  We  know  only  that  to  him  the 
spherical  form  is  absolutely  the  perfect  form,  that 
to  breast  the  ether  in  his  splendid  onward  sweep  is 
in  some  way  the  keenest  of  all  joys,  that  all  the 
beauty  and  vividness  and  vibrant  happiness  of  all 
the  thousand  forms  of  life  in  the  world  are  but  a 
partial  expression  of  his  bliss.  The  life  of  his  world 
is  part  of  him,  just  as  he  in  turn  is  part  of  the  Solar 
Deity  Himself.  This  Angel  of  the  Earth  is  a  great 
intelligence,  and  in  many  ways  he  manifests  through 
us  who  are  a  part  of  him.  Music,  for  example,  is 
one  of  his  faculties,  so  that  when  we  play  or  sing 
we  are  helping  him  to  express  himself,  and  thus 
giving  pleasure  to  him;  for  music,  as  I  have  said 
before,  is  a  sort  of  entity  or  congeries  of  entities,  and 
when  we  use  it  we  are  bringing  into  play  another 
side  of  Nature,  an  additional  set  of  forces,  and 
associating  with  us  some  of  the  Music-Angels. 

Most  of  us  have  as  yet  no  conscious  contact  with 
the  great  Earth-Angel,  though  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
possible that  that  may  be  one  of  the  glories  lying 
before  us  in  the  future.  When  life  was  simpler  and 


272  The  Christian  Festivals 

more  natural,  men  drew  nearer  to  a  comprehension 
of  him;  at  least  they  became  aware  of  some  of  his 
thought-forms,  and  half -materialized  them;  and  they 
definitely  attained  companionship  with  some  of  the 
wood  or  river  spirits  who  bear  to  him  the  same  re- 
lationship that  he  in  turn  bears  to  the  Solar  Deity. 
They  differ  much  as  men  do;  some  are  of  exalted 
type,  earnest  workers  in  the  cause  of  evolution,  while 
others  are  by  no  means  incapable  of  manifesting 
personal  desire  and  other  quite  ordinary  human  char- 
acteristics; but  their  life  is  so  radically  different 
from  ours  that  we  are  in  no  position  even  to  attempt 
anything  in  the  nature  of  criticism  of  their  actions. 

They  animate  or  ensoul  or  brood  over  (all  these 
expressions  are  applicable,  yet  none  is  fully  satis- 
factory) a  section  of  the  earth's  surface — sometimes 
an  extensive  landscape  or  a  great  forest,  sometimes 
only  a  field,  a  spinney  or  a  garden.  Some  seem  com- 
paratively indifferent  to  this  physical  garment  of 
theirs;  others  are  keenly  alive  to  anything  which 
affects  it  in  the  slightest  degree.  Some  obviously 
dislike  all  human  intrusion,  and  even  take  steps  to 
prevent  it ;  others  welcome  certain  friends,  but  adopt 
a  reserved  attitude  towards  mankind  in  general. 
Those  who  ensoul  beautiful  views  very  definitely  ap- 
preciate and  enjoy  the  admiration  of  the  artistic; 
and  almost  all  show  great  surprise  and  delight  when 
they  meet  a  human  being  who  can  see  them,  and 
understand  them  and  converse  with  them.  Though 
the  higher  orders  of  the  Angels  reach  far  beyond  any 
level  that  the  bulk  of  humanity  has  yet  attained  or 
even  imagined,  these  lower  orders  are,  as  I  have  said, 
not  unlike  developed  men;  and  indeed  it  is  often 
by  no  means  easy  at  the  first  glance  to  distinguish 


Festival  of  the  Angels  273 

between  the  lower  members  of  the  angelic  kingdom 
and  the  most  advanced  of  the  nature-spirits. 

The  nature-spirits  stand  in  relation  to  the  Angels 
just  as  the  animal  kingdom  stands  in  relation  to  the 
human,  and  the  dividing  line  between  the  two  is 
individualization,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other; 
but  a  much  higher  development  of  intelligence  and 
reasoning  power  is  gained  before  individualization 
in  the  case  of  the  less  material  evolution,  and  thus 
it  happens  that  we  frequently  encounter  the  pheno- 
menon of  etheric  or  astral  entities  fully  equal  to 
man  in  intelligence  and  resourcefulness,  but  without 
any  special  ethical  feeling  or  sense  of  responsibility. 

These  more  tenuous  beings  constitute  a  line  of 
evolution  parallel  to  our  own,  and  consequently  every 
stage  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  physical  life  is 
represented  among  them,  from  the  amorphous  pro- 
tozoon,  in  which  consciousness  is  dawning,  to  the 
great  Archangel  who  directs  a  vast  department  of 
terrestrial  activity.  The  number  of  types  is  all  but 
infinite — a  fact  that  accounts  for  the  wide  difference 
between  the  reports  of  casual  observers.  For  the 
existence  of  these  non-human  entities  is  widely  known 
in  the  world,  and  numbers  of  people  have  seen  them ; 
indeed,  it  was  only  the  ignorant  scepticism  of  the 
last  century  that  introduced  disbelief  in  their 
realitjr. 

In  old  Greek  stories  we  read  frequently  of  en- 
counters between  human  beings  and  these  minor 
powers  of  nature,  and  these  latter  are  sometimes 
represented  as  materializing  temporary  physical 
bodies,  always  in  human  form,  and  assuming  paren- 
tal responsibilities.  Modern  scepticism  scoffs  at 
such  legends,  but  there  are  many  facts  in  Nature 


274  The  Christian  Festivals 

which  lie  outside  our  very  limited  experience. 
There  were  plenty  of  instances  in  classical  days; 
and  it  is  unwise  to  decide  that,  because  a  thing  does 
not  happen  in  our  crassly  materialistic  civilization, 
it  can  never  have  occurred  under  more  natural  and 
picturesque  conditions.  It  is  unsafe  as  well  as  pre- 
sumptuous to  pronounce  the  bombastic  formula : 
"What  I  know  not  is  not  knowledge/' 

Perhaps  I  shall  best  attain  my  object  if  I  describe 
two  experiences  of  my  own  with  these  Lords  of  the 
wood  and  field ;  in  the  first  case  with  one  who  was 
decidedly  on  the  angelic  side  of  the  dividing  line, 
and  in  the  second  case  with  some  highly  developed 
nature-spirits.  Once  upon  a  time  my  friends  car- 
ried me  off  for  a  day  in  the  open  air — a  day  to  be 
spent  in  a  tract  of  country  which,  though  not  far 
from  a  great  city,  is  left  in  its  wild  and  primitive 
condition  as  a  National  Reserve  for  the  enjoyment 
of  the  people.  On  Saturday  and  Sunday  it  is  often 
quite  crowded,  but  during  the  rest  of  the  week  it 
is  a  delightful  umbrageous  solitude.  In  the  centre 
of  it  is  a  wooded  valley  through  which  runs  a  river; 
and  as  soon  as  we  entered  that  valley  the  sensitive 
members  of  our  party  at  once  became  conscious  of 
a  brooding  influence,  by  no  means  unpleasant,  but 
distinctly  unusual.  Tracing  this  to  its  source,  we 
found  the  whole  valley  to  be  under  the  care  of  an 
Angel  who  has  decided  views  as  to  what  he  intends 
to  make  of  it,  and  is  showing  laudable  determina- 
tion and  unwearied  patience  in  achieving  his  ends. 
He  regards  the  place  as  a  sacred  charge,  and  aims 
at  so  magnetizing  it  that  it  shall  produce  an  effect 
upon  every  sensitive  person  who  passes  through  it. 
He  has  stretched  a  web  of  etheric  matter  from  crest 


Festival  of  the  Angels  275 

to  crest,  to  isolate  his  valley  from  the  outer  world; 
and  inside  it  he  endeavours  to  keep  up  something 
like  a  higher  moral  temperature,  much  as  we  pre- 
serve a  higher  physical  temperature  in  the  palm- 
house  at  Kew. 

His  theory  is  that  people  visit  the  great  Park  at 
a  time  of  relaxation,  when  their  minds  are  free 
from  the  strain  of  business,  and  that  they  are  there- 
fore less  imprisoned  within  the  shell  of  selfishness, 
and  more  open  to  the  higher  influences.  He  argues 
that  if  he  thus  catches  men  at  the  favourable 
moment,  the  gentle  yet  steady  upward  pressure, 
which  his  atmosphere  is  applying  all  the  while  as 
they  saunter  along  his  valley  or  row  on  his  river, 
must  produce  some  effect — an  effect  which  will  of 
course  increase  in  direct  ratio  to  the  impressibility 
of  those  who  are  subjected  to  it,  but  can  hardly  be 
entirely  absent  except  in  the  most  hardened  cases. 
This  aura  of  his  is  already  instantly  perceptible  to  a 
psychic,  but  he  considers  his  work  yet  scarcely  be- 
gun, and  is  enthusiastic  as  to  the  condition  he  hopes 
to  be  able  to  induce  by  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  of 
strenuous  labour  and  concentration. 

It  was  of  intense  interest  to  us  to  observe  the 
methods  which  he  had  been  employing  in  his  pre- 
paration, and  the  success  which  he  has  so  far 
achieved;  it  may  not  however  prove  easy  to  explain 
a  line  of  activity  so  remote  from  ordinary  human 
conception.  It  is  comprehensible  that  every  living 
creature,  every  fox,  rabbit  or  weasel  is  a  fragment  of 
the  divine  life  in  manifestation,  and  (though  not  yet 
individualized  and  capable  of  reincarnation)  is  dur- 
ing its  physical  existence  just  as  much  a  soul,  a 
separate  consciousness,  as  any  one  of  us.  We  must 


276  The  Christian  Festivals 

extend  this  idea  to  include  the  smaller  forms  of 
animal  life,  and  the  trees  and  bushes  of  our  wood. 
But  each  of  these  lives  is  naturally  independent  and 
self-centred,  moving  in  its  own  way,  so  that  such 
force  as  they  radiate  flows  indifferently  in  all  direc- 
tions, and  its  various  streams  probably  cancel  one 
another.  By  his  steady  pressure  the  Angel  of  the 
Valley  has  changed  all  this;  without  in  any  way 
coercing  or  interfering  with  his  trees  and  his  animals 
he  has  brought  them  gradually  to  be  capable  of  a 
certain  co-operation,  or  amenable  to  a  common  in- 
fluence. Normally  each  creature  thinks  and  acts  for 
itself  just  as  before;  but  at  any  moment,  when  the 
Angel  wishes  it,  he  can  send  out  a  stream  to  which 
all  the  lives  instantly  adapt  themselves;  they  lie 
parallel  like  reeds  combed  out  by  a  current,  and  all 
the  force  of  the  valley  is  at  his  disposal,  acting  as 
a  unit.  He  spoke  sadly,  almost  impatiently,  of  the 
type  of  human  being  who  visited  his  valley  in 
crowds  on  Sundays,  declaring  that  although  they 
professed  to  belong  to  a  higher  kingdom,  they  were 
of  less  actual  use  to  him  in  the  generation  of  energy 
than  the  very  rabbits  under  their  feet. 

It  happened  that  one  of  our  party  was  a  bishop, 
wearing  a  pectoral  cross,  which  is  a  highly-mag- 
netized jewel  containing  gems  specially  linked  with 
the  Heads  of  the  Seven  Rays — an  object  of  immense 
value  as  a  centre  for  the  distribution  of  force  for 
the  helping  of  men.  In  this  the  Angel  was  keenly 
interested,  asking  to  be  allowed  to  examine  it 
closely.  He  fully  understood  its  object  and  its 
power;  and  when,  later  in  the  day,  another  member 
of  the  party  encountered  him  alone,  he  enquired 
whether  it  would  be  possible  that  a  similar  arrange- 


Festival  of  the  Angels  277 

ment  of  magnetized  and  linked  gems  could  be  pro- 
cured for  him,  explaining  in  how  many  ways  it  would 
be  of  assistance  to  him  in  his  work.  Of  course  we 
very  gladly  agreed  to  provide  what  he  wished;  there 
was  no  difficulty  in  doing  so,  for  the  merest  speck 
of  the  appropriate  jewel  is  sufficient  to  make  the 
necessary  radiating  centre,  so  that  the  total  cost  of 
such  a  talisman  is  only  a  few  shillings.  As  soon  as 
it  was  prepared,  a  deputation  visited  his  valley 
once  more  to  present  it  to  him;  he  was  greatly 
pleased,  and  requested  us  to  bury  it  in  the  ground 
for  him  in  a  central  spot  which  he  selected  with  great 
care,  being  especially  particular  as  to  what  trees 
grew  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  When  this 
was  done,  he  called  together  a  large  number  of  the 
higher  types  of  nature-spirits  (probably  superin- 
tendents under  him)  and  held  a  beautiful  little  dedi- 
cation ceremony,  in  which  they  were  put  en  rapport 
with  the  amulet,  and  its  use  was  fully  explained  to 
them.  The  jewels  were  caused  to  glow  until  they 
were  surrounded  by  a  great  globe  of  living  light; 
and  each  spirit  in  turn  came  and  bathed  himself  in 
that  splendour  until  he  was  thoroughly  permeated 
with  it,  charged  with  it  as  though  he  were  a  battery. 

The  Angel  was  quite  disproportionately  grateful 
for  this  small  service  which  we  rendered  him,  and 
for  our  strong  interest  in  his  work.  We  were 
naturally  anxious  to  find  other  ways  of  helping  him, 
but  it  was  not  easy  to  see  what  else  we  could  do. 
Presently,  however,  we  discovered  a  method  by 
which  we  could  be  of  great  use  to  him,  and  give 
him  really  valuable  assistance  in  his  work — assist- 
ance which,  if  continued  by  our  successors,  will  very 
materially  shorten  the  time  required  to  get  his  valley 


278  The  Christian  Festivals 

into  the  condition  which  he  desires.  That  method  is 
to  allot  to  him  a  portion  of  the  outpouring  of  divine 
force  which  is  evoked  at  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist.  We  found  that  when  this  was  done  he 
was  immensely  strengthened  and  encouraged,  and 
the  influx  of  this  entirely  different  type  of  energy 
seemed  actually  to  inspire  him  with  new  ideas  in 
connection  with  his  work.  Where  the  mighty  magic 
of  the  eucharistic  service  is  understood,  a  list  is 
kept  of  the  people  most  in  need  of  help,  and  of  the 
objects  to  which  this  spiritual  force  can  most  use- 
fully be  devoted.  The  most  efficient  aid  which  we 
can  give  to  our  friend,  the  Angel  of  the  Valley,  is 
to  include  him  in  our  list;  that  is  now  done,  so  he 
is  receiving  a  daily  dole  of  divine  grace  which  re- 
doubles his  power  for  good,  and  incidentally  has  the 
effect  of  drawing  us  into  closer  relation  with  him. 

Here  surely  is  an  instance  of  the  giving  of  mutual 
help,  of  co-operation  between  two  evolutions,  which 
is  interesting  not  only  in  itself,  but  as  a  forecasting 
of  the  future;  a  suggestion  of  the  wider  possibili- 
ties which  may  dawn  upon  the  world  when  we  under- 
stand God's  plan  a  little  better. 

The  other  experience  to  which  I  have  referred  took 
place  in  India.  India  is  a  very  wonderful  country; 
and  even  the  most  unlearned  there  possess  infor- 
mation which  we  in  the  West  are  only  now  begin- 
ning gradually  to  acquire.  Many  Indians  know 
from  observation  that  any  great  old  tree  possesses  a 
strong  temporary  individuality,  capable  on  occasion 
of  exteriorizing  itself  into  human  form;  they  know 
also  that  where  a  grove  of  such  trees  has  been  undis- 
turbed for  many  years  there  is  usually  a  much 
greater  entity  of  a  quite  different  type,  of  whom 


Festival  of  the  Angels  279 

they  speak  as  the  presiding  Angel  or  deity  of  the 
grove — probably  what  is  called  a  kdmadeva.  They 
would  tell  us  that  such  a  being  rules  over  the  less 
developed  tree-spirits  (though  usually  without  inter- 
fering with  them  in  any  way),  and  receives  from 
them  such  worship  as  they  are  capable  of  giving.  He 
-is  also  quite  willing  to  absorb  any  devotion  offered" 
to  him  by  human  beings;  he  even  sometimes  tries  to 
appropriate  what  is  not  especially  intended  for  him. 
As  illustrating  this  I  remember  a  most  interest- 
ing spectacle  of  which  I  was  personally  a  witness. 
European  readers  may  perhaps  not  be  aware 
that  in  India  it  is  customary  to  have  long 
performances  of  a  character  unknown  to  the 
West  in  modern  days,  though  perhaps  not 
entirely  unparalleled  in  mediaeval  times — per- 
formances half-musical,  half-conversational — dis- 
tinctly religious  in  their  intention,  yet  not  without 
homely  touches  of  wit  and  quaint  topical  allusions. 
Some  well  known  religious  story  is  recited,  with 
rigid  adherence  to  the  traditional  incidents,  but  with 
plenty  of  room  for  the  talent  of  the  performer  to 
manifest  itself  in  the  dress  in  which  he  clothes  it, 
in  the  local  allusions  and  songs  which  he  works  into 
his  entertainment.  For  it  is  half  an  entertainment 
and  half  a  religious  function;  members  of  the  audi- 
ence are  deeply  affected,  and  indeed  frequently  pass 
into  a  condition  of  intense  and  half-abstracted  devo- 
tion which  is  almost  a  trance,  and  seem  for  the  time 
unimpressible  by  external  affairs.  Such  a  perform- 
ance (it  is  called  in  the  south  of  India  a  harikatha) 
often  lasts  for  four  or  five  hours — sometimes 
even  all  night,  I  am  told;  and  those  who  attend  seem 


280  The  Christian  Festivals 

capable  of  enjoying  a  sort  of  orgy  of  devotion  for 
quite  an  indefinite  period. 

Looked  at  by  a  clairvoyant,  a  ceremony  of  this 
sort  veils  itself  in  rolling  clouds  of  blue,  intermingled 
sometimes  with  other  unexpected  colours;  but  it 
naturally  differs  completely  from  a  definite  act  or 
offering  of  devotion  aimed  at  a  particular  deity. 
Perhaps  it  is  that  very  difference,  that  vagueness 
and  lack  of  direction,  which  offers  his  opportunity 
to  the  local  deity;  for  in  the  case  to  which  I  am  re- 
ferring there  was  in  attendance  an  entity  of  no 
mean  power,  the  ruler  of  a  neighbouring  grove,  who 
sat  on  the  roof  of  the  building  and  absorbed  those 
clouds  of  devotion  as  a  sponge  sucks  up  water. 

This  "ruler  of  the  wood"  had  materialized  into 
human  form,  gigantic  but  well-proportioned,  and 
rather  feminine  than  masculine  in  appearance;  his 
(or  her)  body  was  obviously  normally  astral,  but 
had  drawn  into  itself  for  the  occasion  so  much  of 
etheric  matter  that  it  was  only  just  barely  beyond 
the  limit  of  ordinary  physical  sight;  I  think  it  must 
have  been  perceptible  to  anyone  even  slightly  sensi- 
tive. If  the  form  was  human,  the  expression  as- 
suredly was  not;  it  was  weird  and  incalculably 
strange;  no  single  feature  was  noticeably  unhuman, 
yet  the  effect  of  the  whole  was  removed  by  unthink- 
able spaces  from  sane  everyday  life.  One  felt  one- 
self rapt  away  from  the  twentieth  century  after 
Christ  into  the  twentieth  century  before  Him,  into 
the  unfamiliar  and  the  uncanny,  the  incomprehen- 
sible— perhaps  even  the  terrible.  Not  that  the 
wood-queen  was  ill-disposed;  on  the  contrary,  she 
wore  an  expression  of  almost  fatuous  satisfaction, 
which  somehow  irresistibly  suggested  the  purring  of 


Festival  of  the  Angels  281 

a  cat;  yet  she  was  remote  with  the  remoteness  of 
another  dimension  from  the  humanity  whose  eman- 
ations she  absorbed  with  an  enjoyment  which  seemed 
somehow  glutinous.  So  far  as  was  perceptible,  she 
gave  nothing  in  return  for  all  that  she  absorbed, 
but  more  and  more  as  the  entertainment  went  on 
she  overshadowed  the  performer,  strengthening  him 
yet  possessing  him,  until  even  in  outward  appearance 
he  grew  strangely,  awfully,  like  her,  and  one  wonders 
how  it  was  that  the  audience  did  not  notice  the 
change  that  came  over  him  and  the  unnatural  ten- 
sion in  the  atmosphere. 

Another  entity  of  similar  type  was  present — an 
entity  just  as  unmistakably  but  indefinably  male  as 
the  former  was  female ;"  a  creature  of  less  power  than 
the  lady,  and  apparently  not  on  the  best  of  terms 
with  her — distinctly  jealous  of  her  at  any  rate,  and 
desirous  to  deflect  some  or  all  of  the  devotion  in 
his  own  direction.  Without  actually  moving  he  con- 
trived to  give  a  strong  impression  of  an  endeavour 
to  oust  her — of  trying  to  shoulder  her  away,  just 
as  one  small  boy  might  try  to  push  another  in  some 
childish  game.  He  was  entirely  unsuccessful,  for 
the  lady  had  attached  herself  to  the  gathering  like 
a  limpet  to  a  rock,  and  was  not  to  be  dispossessed. 

Earnest  students  of  these  subjects,  quite  outside 
our  own  ranks,  are  becoming  familiar  with  the  idea 
that  our  world  has  a  vast  population  normally  un- 
seen by  us — a  population  of  angels  and  nature- 
spirits.  Signs  are  not  wanting  that  the  long  reign 
of  obscurantism  is  at  last  passing,  and  that  con- 
temptuous denial  is  being  replaced  by  intelligent 
enquiry  with  regard  to  such  matters;  and  among 


282  The  Christian  Festivals 

such  signs  it  seems  to  me  that  three  recently-pub- 
lished books  are  specially  noteworthy. 

The  first  of  these  is  The  Fairy  Faith  in  Celtic 
Countries,  by  Dr.  W.  Y.  Evans  Wentz.  This  is  a 
remarkable  and  in  many  respects  an  epoch-making 
book,  for  it  is  the  first  attempt  to  treat  rationally 
and  worthily  at  least  one  section  of  the  world-wide 
belief  in  nature-spirits.  Just  twenty  years  earlier 
Mr.  Hartland  published  his  Science  of  Fairy  Tales, 
but  though  he  wrote  sympathetically  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  avowed  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  theory 
then  current  that  all  fairy  stories  were  traditions 
of  the  remnants  of  earlier  races,  he  stopped  short  of 
any  definite  suggestion  as  to  the  real  ground  of  a 
belief  so  universal.  Dr.  Wentz  goes  much  further; 
he  has  spent  much  time  in  personally  collecting  tes- 
timony as  to  the  living  fairy  faith  in  Scotland,  Ire- 
land, Wales,  the  Isle  of  Man,  Cornwall  and  Brittany, 
and  as  a  result  of  his  investigations  he  proclaims 
that : 

(1)  Fairyland   exists  as  a  supernormal  state  of  conscious- 
ness  into    which  men   and  women   may   enter    temporarily   in 
dreams,  trances,  or  in  various  ecstatic  conditions:   or  for  an 
indefinite   period   at   death. 

(2)  Fairies  exist,  because  in  all  essentials    they  appear  to 
be   the   same    as    the    intelligent    forces    now   recognized   by 
psychical   researchers. 

The  fact  that  Dr.  Wentz  is  a  man  of  science  and 
learning  is  attested  by  the  University  degrees  which 
he  has  taken  in  three  countries;  and  it  is  gratify- 
ing to  find  that  a  man  of  such  standing  has  the 
courage  to  defy  the  cheap  sneers  of  the  ignorant, 
and  to  state  so  clearly  the  result  of  his  investiga- 
tions. He  is  to  be  congratulated  alike  on  his  patient 
industry,  his  perspicacity  and  his  valour;  one  can- 


Festival  of  the  Angels  283 

not  say  to  what  extent  he  is  prepared  to  accept 
clairvoyant  testimony,  but  at  least  it  may  possibly 
interest  him  to  hear  that  many  of  us  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  his  fairyland  under  the  name  of  the 
astral  world,  and  that  even  already  we  know  a 
good  deal  about  some  of  the  many  nations  of  his 
fairies,  though  we  more  often  call  them  nature- 
spirits. 

There  are  some  points  on  which  he  is  not  fully 
in  accord  with  our  own  results,  but  we  may  venture 
to  think  that,  if  he  continues  his  enquiries  in  the 
same  fearless  spirit,  he  will  approximate  more  and 
more  nearly  to  our  conclusions.  He  has  not  yet 
arrived  at  a  clear  distinction  between  the  etheric  and 
the  astral;  and  perhaps  he  (or  more  probably  those 
whom  he  interrogated)  may  not  always  fully  dis- 
tinguish between  the  actions  of  nature-spirits  and 
those  of  dead  men.  For  example,  in  dealing  with 
early  Irish  history,  he  regards  the  Tuatha-de- 
Danaan  as  fairies,  whereas  our  researches  show  them 
to  have  been  a  race  of  men  closely  allied  to  the 
ancient  Greeks.  But  it  is  quite  true  that,  because 
of  their  splendid  appearance  and  greater  knowledge, 
they  were  considered  as  semi-divine  beings,  and  the 
traditions  of  them  are  now  in  the  minds  of  the 
peasantry  inextricably  intermingled  with  those  of 
the  fairies. 

He  speaks  quite  plainly  and  with  evident  sym- 
pathy of  the  Celtic  doctrines  of  rebirth  and  of  the 
other  world,  which,  as  he  expounds  them,  are  simply 
reincarnation  and  the  astral  life,  exactly  as  we  hold 
them;  and  he  declares  that  these  ideas  "accord 
thoroughly  in  their  essentials  with  modern  science." 
The  following  passage  from  p.  514  in  his  book  shows 


284  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  he  shares  with  us  yet  another  of  the  most 
precious  items  of  knowledge  which  our  study  has 
brought  to  us: 

An  integral  part  of  the  Celtic  esoteric  theory  of  evolu- 
tion is,  that  there  have  been  human  'races  like  the  present 
human  race  who  in  past  aeons  of  time  have  evolved  com- 
pletely out  of  the  human  plane  of  conscious  existence  into  the 
divine  plane  of  conscious  existence.  Hence  the  gods  are 
beings  which  once  were  men,  and  the  actual  race  of  men 
will  in  time  become  gods.  Man  now  stands  related  to  the 
divine  and  invisible  world  in  precisely  the  same  manner  that 
the  brute  stands  related  to  the  human  race.  To  the  gods,  man 
is  a  being  in  a  lower  kingdom  of  evolution.  According  to 
the  complete  Celtic  belief,  the  gods  can  and  do  enter  the 
human  world  for  the  specific  purposes  of  teaching  men  how 
to  advance  more  rapidly  towards  the  higher  kingdom.  In 
other  words,  all  the  Great  Teachers  (such  as  Jesus,  Buddha, 
Zoroaster,  and  many  others,  in  different  ages  and  among 
various  races,  whose  teachings  are  extant),  are,  according 
to  a  belief  yet  held  by  educated  and  mystical  Celts,  divine 
beings  who  in  inconceivably  past  ages  were  men  but  who 
are  now  gods,  able  at  will  to  incarnate  into  our  world,  in 
order  to  emphasize  the  need  which  exists  in  nature,  by  virtue 
of  the  working  of  evolutionary  laws  (to  which  they  them- 
selves are  still  subject),  for  man  to  look  forward,  and  so 
strive  to  reach  divinity,  rather  than  to  look  backward  in 
evolution  and  thereby  fall  into  mere  animalism. 

All  students  of  the  inner  side  of  things  will  thank 
Dr.  Wentz  for  the  care  with  which  he  has  made  and 
recorded  a  most  valuable  series  of  investigations. 

It  is  to  him  indirectly  that  we  owe  the  second  book 
of  our  trilogy,  Lore  of  Proserpine,  for  its  author 
(Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett,  who  is  a  novelist  of  repute) 
confesses  that  it  was  only  after  reading  the  work  to 
which  we  have  just  referred  that  he  was  inspired 
to  add  his  modicum  of  personal  testimony  to  that 
which  Dr.  Wentz  has  so  laboriously  collected.  The 
direct  testimony  confines  itself  to  some  five  or  six 


Festival  of  the  Angels  285 

definite  encounters,  though  the  suggestion  is  con- 
veyed that  there  have  been  many  others  entirely 
satisfactory  to  the  author,  but  less  capable  of 
description. 

He  speaks  of  a  fairy  boy  whom  he  saw  in  a  wood, 
of  a  dryad,  and  of  some  other  forms  to  which  he 
gives  the  name  of  oreads.  These  seem  all  to  have 
resembled  humanity  in  size  and  general  appearance, 
yet  to  have  had  about  them  some  distinctively  non- 
human  quality.  I  have  seen  hundreds  of  nature- 
spirits  to  which  his  descriptions  would  apply,  yet  he 
seems  to  have  had  one  experience  that  has  never  yet 
fallen  to  my  lot,  for  he  records  that  he  saw  a  fairy 
behaving  cruelly  to  an  animal,  whereas  all  those  that 
I  have  encountered  have  appeared  to  be  on  the  most 
friendly  terms  with  the  wild  denizens  of  the  flood 
and  field.  Apart  from  the  above  instances,  he  gives 
some  account  of  several  cases  in  which  he  believes 
that  nature-spirits  inhabited  human  bodies — an 
event  which  certainly  does  sometimes  occur,  perhaps 
more  frequently  than  we  have  hitherto  suspected. 
The  most  remarkable  story  in  the  book  is  called 
"Quidnunc,"  and  perhaps  one  may  be  pardoned  for 
feeling  some  uncertainty  as  to  whether  Mr.  Hewlett 
wishes  us  to  take  it  seriously;  it  describes  what  pur- 
ports to  be  a  very  inappropriate  incarnation  of  Mer- 
cury, the  messenger  of  the  old  Greek  gods. 

In  a  final  chapter  our  author  tries  to  formulate  a 
theory  which  shall  include  all  these  experiences,  and 
comes  in  some  points  very  near  the  truth.  He  says: 

There  is  a  chain  of  Being  of  whose  top  alike  and  bottom 
we  know  nothing  at  all.  What  we  do  know  is  that  our  own 
is  a  link  in  it,  and  we  cannot  generally — can  only  fitfully  and 
rarely — have  intercourse  with  any  other.  ...  Of  this  chain 
of  Being,  then,  of  which  our  order  is  a  member,  the  fairy 


286  The  Christian  Festivals 

world  is  another,  and  more  subtle  member,  subtler  in  the 
right  sense  of  the  word  because  it  is  not  burdened  with  a 
material  envelope.  Like  man,  like  the  wind,  like  the  rose, 
it  has  spirit;  but  unlike  any  of  the  lower  orders  (of  which 
man  is  one)  it  has  no  sensible  wrappings  unless  deliberately 
it  consents  to  inhabit  one. 

With  all  that  we  can  agree;  but  on  some  minor 
points  we  are  less  certain.  Mr.  Hewlett  seems  to 
hold  that  all  fairies  have  sex,  and  reproduce  their 
species  as  we  do,  while  we  should  think  that  to  be 
true  only  of  a  few  of  the  lower  etheric  varieties. 
There  are  still  other  points  upon  which  he  specu- 
lates, probably  rightly;  but  we  have  not  as  yet  suffi- 
cient evidence  to  make  positive  statements  about 
them.  He  evidently  holds  that  the  classical  deities 
of  ancient  Greece  still  exist,  and  may  be  reached. 
He  understands  that  a  river,  a  hill,  an  oak-tree,  a 
rose-bush  may  be  under  certain  circumstances  an 
actual  entity,  wherein  we  are  fully  with  him;  and 
he  believes  that  such  an  entity  may  sometimes 
materialize  in  human  form,  and  actually  enter  into 
the  closest  relations  with  men  and  women. 

It  seems  probable  that  the  entities  which  I  saw 
at  that  Indian  festival  were  of  the  same  type  as 
some  of  those  described  by  Mr.  Hewlett.  However 
that  may  be,  his  book  will  have  its  use  in  familiariz- 
ing a  wide  circle  of  readers  with  the  idea  of  the 
reality  of  faery. 

The  third  book  of  the  set  is  A  Prisoner  in  Fairy- 
land, by  Mr.  Algernon  Blackwood.  When  we  open 
a  book  by  that  author  we  know  that  a  treat  lies  be- 
fore us,  and  if  on  inspection  we  find  that  children 
figure  prominently  among  the  characters,  we  know 
that  it  will  be  a  great  treat,  for  Mr.  Blackwood 's 
children  are  always  charming  creations.  A  Prisoner 


Festioal  of  the  Angels  287 

in  Fairyland  offers  us  children — delightful  children; 
perhaps  none  quite  so  utterly  lovable  as  Nixie  in  The 
Education  of  Uncle  Paul,  but  still  young  people  who 
soon  bind  themselves  to  us  by  cords  of  affection. 
Once  more  fairyland  is  the  astral  world,  into  which 
all  the  characters  pass  when  they  fall  asleep — or 
nearly  all,  for  some  are  so  entangled  in  worldly 
cares  that  they  cannot  be  pulled  out  of  their  physi- 
cal bodies,  but  actually  stick  in  the  process  and  slip 
back  again!  But  though  this  story  deals  with  fairy- 
land we  hear  nothing  of  the  fairies,  except  a  few 
who  are  personified  dreams  of  childhood — the  Dust- 
man, the  Tramp,  the  Woman  of  the  Haystack;  nor 
do  we  even  encounter  the  hosts  of  the  dead.  We 
are  invited  to  concentrate  our  attention  entirely 
upon  the  living  human  inhabitants  of  the  astral 
world,  and  the  work  which  they  do  as  invisible 
helpers. 

For  the  stream  of  Divine  Love  pours  down  ever 
as  the  Starlight,  and  such  of  it  as  is  not  immediately 
used  is  stored  up  in  a  Star-Cave,  and  all  the  helpers 
come  flying  there  at  night  to  fetch  it  and  distribute 
it  where  it  is  needed,  among  the  sick,  the  sorrowful, 
the  suffering.  The  whole  book  is  a  fantasia  upon 
this  theme — a  delicate  fantasy  such  as  Mr.  Black- 
wood  so  well  knows  how  to  weave,  and  all  his  char- 
acters are  fantasts  too.  They  live  in  a  world  which 
is  and  yet  is  not  the  world  that  we  know — a  world 
enwrapped  in  a  web  of  starlight,  palpitant  with  mys- 
tery and  sympathy,  with  omnipresent  life  and  love. 

There  is  no  story  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word — no  plot,  no  climax;  yet  the  book  is  permeated 
with  the  idea  that  thoughts  are  things,  that  because 
of  the  mighty  power  and  wide-spreading  influence 


288  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  thought  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  to  think  beauty 
and  helpfulness,  and  to  pour  it  out  with  clear  intent 
upon  those  whom  we  know  to  need  it.  Some  are 
so  shut  in  by  a  shell  of  sordid  care  that  it  is  hard 
to  find  a  way  into  their  hearts;  yet  such  a  shell  may 
be  penetrated  if  there  is  in  it  even  one  tiny  channel 
of  love.  We  read  of  one  who  was  in  the  bondage  of 
squalid  anxieties,  yet  could  be  touched  and  helped 
through  her  love  for  her  flowers. 

This  is  by  no  means  a  book  for  all,  yet  to  those 
who  understand  it  will  appeal  very  strongly.  It 
takes  its  place  with  the  books  already  mentioned — 
signs  of  the  times,  all  three  of  them,  showing  that 
popular  interest  is  turning  towards  the  non-material 
side  of  life,  and  is  gradually  beginning  to  realize  its 
transcendent  importance.  I  recommend  them  all  to 
our  students. 

There  are  Angels,  too,  presiding  over  countries 
and  races,  brooding  over  them,  to  some  extent  en- 
souling them,  ready  to  take  a  close  interest  in  them 
and  advise  them  if  the  people  of  the  country  or  race 
will  but  make  themselves  responsive.  If  there  ever 
comes  a  time  when  those  who  govern  a  country  are 
wise  enough  to  desire  the  advice  of  its  guardian 
Angel,  and  developed  enough  to  consult  with  him, 
they  may  profit  greatly  by  his  assistance. 

The  world  seems  far  from  such  a  time  as  yet,  but 
we  can  help  to  bring  it  nearer  by  adopting  an  intel- 
ligent attitude  towards  the  whole  question,  and 
keeping  an  open  mind.  The  worst  thing  that  can 
happen  to  us  is  to  become  prejudiced  and  hidebound, 
so  that  we  are  unable  to  receive  new  ideas,  and  to 
widen  out  in  harmony  with  the  development  of  the 
moral,  the  mental,  the  physical  world  about  us.  We 


Festival  of  Che  Angels  289 

must  move  with  the  times,  and  in  order  to  do  so 
we  must  open  ourselves  out.  All  kinds  of  beautiful 
possibilities  exist;  we  have  not  known  of  them 
hitherto,  but  that  is  surely  no  reason  why  we  may 
not  learn  about  them  and  take  advantage  of  them 
now.  We  must  be  open  to  all  good  influences,  but 
we  must  never  forget  the  advice  of  the  apostle  to 
try  the  spirits,  whether  they  be  of  God.  We  must 
not  accept  as  gospel  everything  which  we  hear  from 
some  unseen  source;  we  must  test  and  judge  care- 
fully, using  our  reason  and  common  sense  at  every 
point,  remembering  that  it  is  just  as  unwise  to  re- 
ject without  examination  as  to  accept  without 
examination.  But  the  first  step  of  all  is  to  recognize 
the  possibility  of  a  wider  and  higher  life,  and  learn 
to  vibrate  in  response  to  it. 

I  have  mentioned  but  few  of  the  numerous  angelic 
activities;  but  I  think  that  even  this  short  account 
will  be  enough  to  show  us  that  we  have  indeed  great 
reason  to  glorify  God  for  their  ministry,  to  observe 
their  festival  with  vivid  enthusiasm,  and  to  feel 
their  splendour  as  an  ever-present  reality,  enfold- 
ing us  like  the  sunlight,  ever  drawing  our  thoughts 
and  our  hearts  upwards  towards  Him  Who  is  the 
King  of  Angels  as  well  as  of  men. 


CHAPTER  XV 
FESTIVALS  OF  THE  SAINTS 

OUR  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS   THE  SAINTS 

We  have  a  number  of  festivals  in  the  Christian 
year  which  are  intended  to  remind  us  of  great 
people  who  have  gone  before.  Just  as  in  the  outer 
world  it  is  the  custom  to  keep  the  birthday  of  His 
Majesty  the  King,  and  of  various  members  of  the 
royal  family,  so  in  the  Church  is  it  the  custom  to 
keep  the  birthday  of  the  Princes  of  the  Church— 
the  great  saints  who  have  stood  out  in  her  ranks  as 
especially  noble  examples,  who  are  great  heroes  and 
leaders,  whom  we  are  all  proud  to  follow;  but  in 
the  case  of  the  saint  we  celebrate  not  as  a  rule  his 
birthday  on  the  physical  plane,  but  what  some  might 
call  the  day  of  his  death — his  birthday  into  a  higher 
life.  In  the  calendar  of  the  Roman  Church  we  find 
a  vast  host  of  saints,  often  one  or  even  two  or  three 
for  every  day  in  the  year.  The  reason  for  that 
is  easy  to  see.  In  any  particular  part  of  the  world 
its  own  leaders  take  great  prominence.  It  is  the 
same  in  every-day  life.  We  celebrate  the  birthday 
of  His  Majesty  King  George,  but  in  other  countries 
they  keep  the  birthday  of  their  rulers,  who  are  to 
them"  more  important  than  our  ruler,  and  just  in 
the  same  way  we  find  a  large  number  of  local  saints, 
people  who  did  good  work  in  their  time  and  in  their 
place,  but  are  really  not  of  world-wide  importance. 

We  find  that  the  observance  of  the  days  of  such  an 
enormous  number  of  saints  makes  the  Roman  ser- 
vices cumbrous  and  complicated;  and  when  the 

290 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  291 

people  were  of  purely  local  renown  it  hardly  seems 
worth  while.  If  we  look  at  the  list  of  saints  we  shall 
come  upon  dozens  of  whom  we  have  never  heard  be- 
fore. I  know  that  is  the  case  with  me,  and  perhaps 
I  have  studied  ecclesiastical  history  more  than  many 
people.  These  saints  evoke  no  particular  enthusiasm 
in  me,  because  I  do  not  know  them.  In  the  Liberal 
Catholic  Church  we  have  thought  it  well  not  to  adopt 
numbers  of  saints  about  whom  we  have  no  informa- 
tion, more  especially  as  we  find  it  difficult  to  trace 
many  of  them  historically.  Some  are  purely  legen- 
dary, and  while  we  are  not  averse  to  celebrating  a 
legend  if  it  is  a  good  legend  and  has  some  founda- 
tion, it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  perpetuate 
stories  which  we  know  to  be  historically  inaccurate. 

In  our  psychic  investigations  we  found  little  trace 
of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Christ.  It  is  true  that 
He  had  apostles,  but  we  do  not  find  twelve  who 
stand  out  conspicuously,  and  the  names  given  in  the 
gospel  story  do  not  appear  at  all  prominently.  Most 
of  them  were  not  apparently  people  of  great  im- 
portance. I  remember  we  thought  in  our  earliest 
investigations  that  at  least  St.  Peter  must  prove  to 
be  a  man  and  a  great  leader,  but  we  were  checked 
by  the  discovery  that  the  head  of  every  Church  of 
every  country  was  always  called  its  Peter.  It  was 
used  then  not  as  a  name,  but  as  a  title.  Petros  is 
a  rock,  and  the  head  of  each  Church  was  called  its 
Peter,  the  rock  on  which  it  was  built,  There  may 
of  course  have  been  a  first  and  greater  Peter,  but 
we  were  not  successful  in  our  attempt  to  identify 
him.  There  were  also  some  indications  which  sug- 
gested that  the  twelve  may  have  been  a  personi- 
fication of  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  For  all 


292  &he  Christian  Festivals 

these  reasons  we  in  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church 
have  decided  not  to  perpetuate  all  of  the  earlier 
saints,  but  we  have  chosen  those  whose  celebration 
offers  us  something  tangible  or  useful,  something 
that  it  is  well  for  us  to  know. 

A  saint  is  by  the  definition  a  holy  man,  for  the 
word  is  derived  from  the  Latin  sanctus,  holy.  In 
the  Gospel  for  All  Saints'  Day  we  are  told  what  we 
are  to  understand  by  that.  That  gospel  contains  the 
account  of  what  is  commonly  called  the  last  judg- 
ment, and  though  the  popular  theory  of  that  event 
is  so  distorted  as  to  be  an  absurd  travesty  of  the 
truth,  there  is  nevertheless  a  lesson  to  be  learnt  from 
it.  Those  whom  the  King  put  on  His  right  hand  in 
that  story  were  those  who  had  fed  the  hungry,  who 
had  given  drink  to  the  thirsty,  who  had  clothed 
the  naked,  who  had  visited  those  who  were  sick  and 
in  prison.  This  account  is  according  to  the  gospel 
spoken  by  the  Christ  Himself,  who  is  to  be  the 
judge  on  that  occasion  and  therefore  presumably 
must  know  something  of  the  procedure;  and  He  very 
specially  mentions  those  people  as  the  saints,  but 
does  not  attach  that  name  to  any  man  because  of 
his  belief  in  this  doctrine  or  that.  He  does  not  say 
a  word  about  what  these  people  believed  or  what 
they  did  not  believe ;  He  says  only :  ' '  Those  who  have 
done  such  things  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  My 
little  ones,  have  done  them  unto  Me."  Those  are 
the  true  holy  men — those  are  the  saints.  What  they 
believe  is  of  no  importance  whatever;  it  is  what  they 
do  that  counts.  They  may  be  Hindus,  Buddhists, 
Zoroastrians,  Muhammadans ;  if  they  do  these  things 
they  pass  the  examination,  and  are  saints.  So  we 
see  what  kind  of  men  and  women  we  must  be  if 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  293 

we  are  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  these  holy  ones 
whom  we  commemorate. 

A  great  deal  is  said  in  the  Roman  branch  of  the 
Church  about  the  intercession  of  the  saints.  They 
are  asked  to  pray  God  for  us  that  our  sins  may  be 
forgiven,  and  that  we  may  be  helped  in  various  ways. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  other  branches  of  Christ's 
Church  we  find  that  very  prayer  to  the  saints  re- 
garded as  a  dangerous  superstition,  for  the  ignorant 
say  that  Catholics  allow  the  saints  to  get  between 
them  and  God.  A  curious  expression,  because  it  is 
obviously  true  that  the  saints  are  in  development 
between  ordinary  men  and  God.  The  saints  are 
higher  than  we,  and  certainly  infinitely  lower  than 
the  Deity  of  our  solar  system.  They  do  stand  be- 
tween us,  but  why  it  should  be  considered  wicked  or 
dangerous  to  ask  for  any  help  they  can  give  I  have 
never  been  able  to  see.  We  of  the  Liberal  Catholic 
Church  do  not  ask  for  intercession  on  the  part  of 
anyone,  because  we  know  that  God  is  a  loving 
Father  and  that  He  is  all  the  time  doing  for  all  of 
us  the  very  best  that  can  be  done  at  the  stage  where 
we  happen  to  be  at  the  moment.  We  do  not  need 
anyone  to  pray  Him  to  do  that  for  us.  What  we 
need  is  to  try  to  make  ourselves  more  worthy  of 
the  help  which  He  is  all  the  time  pouring  out  upon 
us,  so  that  we  may  be  the  more  susceptible  to  it, 
and  better  able  to  profit  by  it.  That  is  our  side 
of  the  bargain,  that  we  should  try  to  live  as  He 
has  told  us  to  live;  that  we  should  try  so  to  live 
as  one  day  ourselves  to  reach  this  very  sainthood  of 
which  we  are  thinking. 

Is  there  then  any  use  in  praying  to  the  saints,  if 
we  do  not  want  them  to  pray  for  us?  They  can  do 


294  The  Christian  Festivals 

a  great  deal,  no  doubt;  but  they  also,  like  the  God 
whom  they  serve,  are  already  doing  what  they  can; 
we  may  be  very  sure  of  that.  A  great  deal  of  the 
misunderstanding  which  has  surrounded  the  ques- 
tion of  sainthood  comes  from  the  forgetting  of  the 
great  fact  of  reincarnation.  The  idea  all  through 
the  Middle  Ages  was  certainly  that  the  saint,  hav- 
ing left  earth,  had  passed  away  into  heaven,  and  so 
was  close  at  hand  to  plead  with  God,  as  a  kind  of 
friend  at  court.  Many  of  our  hymns  voice  that 
idea:  "There  they  stand  in  heavenly  glory, "  etc. 
That  is  quite  true,  but  it  does  not  mean  that  they 
are  in  some  special  place,  some  heaven  set  apart 
from  the  rest  of  God's  evolution.  The  great  saint 
has  raised  himself  into  a  position  where  he  does 
walk  in  the  light  and  the  glory  of  God's  counten- 
ance, whether  he  be  what  we  call  alive  or  what  we 
call  dead,  because  it  is  the  man  himself,  the  ego, 
the  soul  of  him  which  knows  and  enjoys  all  that 
glory  and  beauty.  Thus  what  is  said  in  our  hymns 
is  true,  if  only  we  understand  it  symbolically,  as 
it  should  be  understood.  We  must  avoid  the  idea 
that  the  saints  are  all  living  together  somewhere  as. 
a  great  community  round  the  feet  of  God;  God  is 
everywhere,  and  those  who  draw  nearest  to  Him  are 
those  who  serve  Him  best,  not  merely  by  verbal 
worship  of  Him,  but  by  action  in  His  service  in 
spirit  and  in  truth.  Many  of  the  saints  to  whom 
people  pray  are  incarnated  here  on  earth,  and  some 
of  them  walk  among  us  now.  Nevertheless,  they  as 
souls  receive  the  outpouring  of  love  and  devotion 
which  is  given  to  them,  and  it  is  certainly  help- 
ful to  them,  not  only  by  its  direct  action,  but  also 
because  of  the  response  which  every  such  outrush 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  295 

of  love  and  devotion  calls  forth  from  them.  To  out- 
pour in  response  is  part  of  their  evolution;  and 
much  good  is  also  unquestionably  done  to  those  pious 
souls  who  by  their  love  evoke  this  blessing  from  the 
saints. 

Some  of  us  may  not  have  been  accustomed  to  such 
an  idea  as  that,  and  so  it  may  not  appeal  to  us;  but 
the  fact  that  a  particular  idea  does  not  attract 
us  is  no  proof  that  it  may  not  be  helpful  to  other 
people  of  different  type.  Many  ideas  that  have 
been  put  forward  in  the  name  of  religion  may  not 
especially  appeal  to-  us ;  but  why  should  we  condemn 
them  if  they  are  useful  to  some  other  servant  of 
God?  Why  should  he  not  take  them  and  make  use 
of  them?  We  cannot  expect  to  cast  the  whole  world 
in  our  own  mould;  it  would  be  a  very  dull  place 
if  we  could!  There  must  be  all  kinds  of  people 
in  it,  and  each  of  these  kinds  of  people  must  have 
its  own  way.  They  have  already  their  own  enjoy- 
ments; they  have  their  own  work,  which  they  can 
do  better  than  we  could  do  it  probably,  whereas 
if  they  tried  to  do  our  work  they  might  find  them- 
selves rather  helpless.  Can  we  not  see  that  they 
must  have  their  own  way  of  approaching  God  also, 
and  that  the  path  which  seems  so  straight  to  our 
eyes  may  not  appear  by  any  means  the  most  direct  to 
them  because  they  are  starting  from  a  different 
point?  As  we  have  so  often  said,  to  try  to  force 
people  to  take  our  view  is  exactly  like  drawing  a 
man  away  from  one  side  of  the  mountain  where  he 
stands,  and  saying:  ''You  must  not  start  from  your 
own  place;  you  must  come  round  to  my  side  of  the 
mountain,  and  start  afresh."  The  man  might  rea- 


296  The  Christian  Festivals 

sonably  reply:  "That  may  be  the  best  way  for  you, 
but  it  is  obviously  not  so  for  me." 

It  is  exactly  the  same  in  religious  matters,  and 
that  is  why  it  is  so  foolish  to  try  to  convert  a  Hindu, 
a  Buddhist,  a  Zoroastrian,  a  Muhammadan  to  Chris- 
tianity. A  mission  to  African  savages  may  have  its 
utility,  for  it  brings  mental,  moral  and  hygienic  ad- 
vancement to  its  converts,  and  Christianity  is  cer- 
tainly an  advance  from  fetish  worship,  but  foreign 
missions  to  civilized  races  are  nothing  but  a  waste 
of  time,  money  and  effort  in  an  endeavour  to  im- 
prove upon  the  divine  arrangements.  It  is  not  by 
chance,  but  by  the  will  of  God,  that  one  man  is  born 
a  Buddhist,  another  a  Hindu,  and  another  a  Chris- 
tian; God  puts  each  man  in  the  environment  which 
he  has  deserved,  which  gives  the  best  available  op- 
portunity to  develop  the  qualities  which  he  most 
needs.  It  is  no  business  of  ours  to  interfere  with 
that  arrangement;  and  if  we  do  so  by  telling  a  per- 
son that  he  can  attain  the  goal  which  God  intends 
him  to  reach  only  by  abandoning  the  path  which 
God  has  chosen  for  him  and  following  our  prescrip- 
tion instead,  we  are  making  a  false,  foolish  and  pre- 
sumptuous statement.  Sometimes  a  man,  having 
carefully  studied  various  religions,  elects  to  change 
from  one  to  another;  he  has  of  course  an  incontest- 
able right  to  do  this,  and  it  may  quite  possibly  be 
of  benefit  to  him,  for  he  may  have  absorbed  all 
that  he  can  along  one  line,  but  may  be  able  use- 
fully to  supplement  his  information  or  experience 
by  adventuring  in  another  direction.  Because  of 
that  we  should  always  be  ready  to  explain  our  be- 
lief and  our  reason  for  holding  it,  when  any  one 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  297 

asks  us  to  do  so;  but  we  have  no  right  whatever  to 
try  to  force  it  upon  him. 

That  is  one  reason  why  in  this  Church  we  leave 
our  people  free  as  to  what  they  should  believe.  We 
tell  them  quite  plainly:  "Here  are  certain  ways 
which  for  us  are  the  best  and  shortest;  they  may 
not  be  so  for  you,  but  probably  they  are,  since  you 
are  drawn  here  to  this  kind  of  worship ;  probably 
you  will  do  well  to  follow  the  lines  which  we  put 
before  you;  but  that  is  a  minor  point.  Take  what 
path  you  will,  but  take  some  path;  get  to  work  and 
climb.  There  are  many  paths  which  lead  to  the 
mountain-head,  and  when  you  get  there  it  does  not 
matter  .by  which  path  you  have  come.  Do  not  make 
the  mistake  of  limiting  everything.  Ingersoll  once 
said  that  an  honest  God  is  the  noblest  work  of  man, 
parodying  the  other  statement  that  an  honest  man 
is  the  noblest  work  of  God.  Some  may  be  trying  to 
make  an  honest  God,  but  others  are  making  in  their 
minds  a  very  petty,  parochial,  bigoted  God,  and  that 
is  a  thing  which  can  hardly  be  pleasing  to  Him — to 
see  Himself  credited  with  our  narrowness  and  our 
prejudices.  At  any  rate  it  is  an  error.  He  has  no 
such  narrowness,  no  such  purblind  limitations.  Many 
things  which  seem  strange  to  us  are  yet  in  His  eyes 
part  of  an  ordered  progress,  for  He  sees  the  whole 
and  we  see  only  one  little  corner;  and  we  are  apt 
to  think  that  some  other  part  is  wrong  if  it  does 
not  agree  with  our  little  corner.  The  saint  is  the 
man  who  goes  to  work  to  help  other  people,  and  we 
do  not  help  them  by  trying  to  force  them  along  our 
own  line.  Never  make  the  mistake  of  condemning 
them  because  they  do  not  follow  ours." 


298  The  Christian  Festivals 

There  are  many  kinds  of  saints  in  life,  and  some 
of  them  may  have  looked  by  no  means  saintly  to 
their  contemporaries  who  did  not  understand.  The 
higher  we  rise  the  more  shall  we  be  able  to  see  of 
the  path  along  which  others  are  going.  So  we  may 
leave  it  to  them;  it  is  their  own  business  how  they 
rise.  If  it  be  possible  for  us  to  put  the  idea  of  ris- 
ing before  those  who  as  yet  have  not  thought  of 
it,  that  is  always  good;  but  we  should  never  try  to 
force  them  to  follow  our  particular  line.  Let  us 
remember  what  is  said  in  one  of  our  collects;  let  us 
so  endeavour  to  follow  the  example  of  the  great 
ones  that  we  also  may  reach  that  which  they  have 
attained.  Not  a  place  in  a  heaven  confined  to  one 
particular  and  perhaps  rather  wearisome  line  of 
enjoyment,  but  a  position  of  greater  power  which 
can  be  used  for  greater  good. 

It  has  been  said,  and  very  truly,  that  God  wants 
people  to  be  more  than  merely  good.  Good  of  course 
they  must  be,  because  unless  they  are  they  cannot 
be  trusted  to  use  their  power  rightly,  but  God  does 
not  want  an  army  of  pious  weaklings.  He  wants 
great  spiritual  powers  who  will  work  for  Him  and 
with  Him.  Remember  the  remark  of  St.  Clement 
of  Alexandria:  "Purity  is  a  negative  virtue,  valu- 
able chiefly  as  a  condition  of  insight."  We  must 
have  some  power  and  some  strength  to  offer  in  His 
service;  and  sometimes  the  earlier  manifestations  of 
power  are  not  altogether  desirable.  We  sometimes 
read  in  the  biographies  of  the  strong  men  of  the 
world— the  men  who  have  done  its  work — that  they 
were  decidedly  wilful  and  unruly  as  children.  They 
were  possessed  even  then  of  a  great  deal  of  power, 
and  it  is  perhaps  difficult  for  a  child  to  show  power 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  299 

without  running  counter  to  the  prejudices  of  the 
people  round  him,  and  so  he  gets  a  bad  reputation. 
Many  who  are  now  considered  great  saints  have 
had  among  their  contemporaries  the  reputation  of 
being  anything  but  saints,  just  because  they  were 
showing  in  some  injudicious  way  the  power  that  was 
in  them.  Still,  it  is  better  to  have  some  strength, 
even  if  one  shows  it  in  a  wrong  way,  than  to  have 
none  at  all;  let  us  learn  to  follow  these  blessed 
saints  in  all  virtuous  and  godly  living,  so  that  at 
last  we  may  come  to  that  condition  of  unspeakable 
joy  in  which  our  angels,  our  higher  selves,  shall 
always  behold  the  face  of  our  Father  Who  is  in 
heaven. 

PATRON  SAINTS 

What  is  a  patron  saint,  and  why  should  a  church 
have  one?  A  patron  saint  is  an  especially  selected 
channel.  The  Christian  religion  is  one  of  the  reli- 
gions of  the  Second  Ray,  that  of  which  Christ  is 
especially  the  Head.  So  to  call  a  church  Christ- 
church  does  not  in  any  way  distinguish  it;  it  is 
simply  one  of  the  many  thousands  of  churches  be- 
longing to  our  Lord,  because  all  Christian  churches 
are  necessarily  churches  of  Christ.  To  speak  of 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  in  any  way 
distinctive.  That  does  not  say  anything  as  to  our 
special  channel  at  a  lower  level,  because  the  grace 
of  God  is  poured  upon  all  churches,  just  in  so  far 
as  they  are  able  to  receive  it. 

Not  that  we  need  channels  in  order  to  reach  God. 
We  must  not  be  under  any  misapprehension  about 
that;  to  every  man  upon  this  earth  and  in  all  other 
worlds  God  Himself  is  "  closer  than  breathing, 
nearer  than  hands  and  feet,"  as  the  great  poet  puts 


300  &he  Christian  Festivals 

it.  We  are  all  of  us  fragments  of  God  Himself, 
sparks  of  that  divine  fire,  and  so  assuredly  we  need 
no  link  in  that  sense  with  the  Deity;  but  if  force  is 
to  be  poured  down  upon  us  from  above  for  our  use 
as  a  church,  it  must  come  down  through  inter- 
mediate levels  and  by  various  routes.  When  we  give 
a  name  to  our  church,  when  we  choose  a  patron  saint 
for  it,  we  are  simply  selecting  a  channel  at  that  dis- 
tinctly lower  level — our  principal  channel,  because 
of  course  there  are  many  ways  through  which  the 
grace  of  God  comes  down  upon  every  church  and 
every  gathering  of  people  who  are  met  together  in 
His  name.  We  choose  a  name  for  our  church ;  do 
not  forget  that  a  name  is  a  power.  When  we  begin 
our  service  in  the  Name  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  truly 
we  claim  that  our  bishops  and  our  priests  act  in 
His  Name,  but  also  we  mean  much  more  than  that. 
We  declare  that  they  act  in  His  power,  that  any 
power  they  have  is  power  delegated  from  Him — 
that  it  is  by  the  power  of  the  Christ  that  the  priest 
can  consecrate  the  Host,  that  the  priest  or  the 
bishop  can  bless,  that  he  can  convey  grace  and  help 
to  God's  people  in  many  different  ways. 

So  to  give  a  name  is  not  merely  to  attach  a  label; 
it  distinctly  indicates  that  we  invoke  that  par- 
ticular saint,  and  ask  that  we  may  approach  through 
him  as  a  channel.  That  does  not  mean  that  we  ask 
him  to  intercede  for  us;  that  is  what  you  would  be 
told  in  the  great  Roman  Church — that  the  patron 
saint  was  a  special  intercessor,  always  reminding 
God  of  those  who  entrust  their  business  to  his 
care.  But  that  is  not  so.  Everyone  of  us  is  near 
to  God,  as  I  have  said.  It  is  true  that  the  great 
saint  is  nearer,  in  the  sense  that  he  has  realized 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  301 

his  nearness,  that  he  has  opened  within  himself 
higher  faculties.  "We  have,  everyone  of  us,  many 
sheaths  or  vehicles.  This  physical  body  that  we  so 
often  think  of  as  "I,"  is  only  the  lowest  and  the 
coarsest  of  the  vehicles,  the  furthest  away  from 
the  reality.  Inside  that  we  have  what  St.  Paul 
called  a  spiritual  body;  still  a  body,  remember,  not 
spirit;  but  a  spiritual  body — a  body  of  much  finer 
matter.  Students  divide  that  body  into  two 
parts,  the  ^emotional  or  astral  body  and  the  mental 
body,  but  those  both  taken  together  are  probably 
what  St.  Paul  meant  when  he  spoke  of  our  spiri- 
tual body.  "There  is  a  natural  body  and  there  is 
a  spiritual  body,"  he  says;  and  in  other  places  he 
speaks  of  man  as  body,  soul  and  spirit. 

Students  often  call  this  threefold  division  the 
monad,  the  ego  and  the  personality.  The  spirit  is 
the  divine  spark  in  man,  the  soul  is  'the  individual 
sheathing  of  that  monad  or  spark,  brought  down 
to  a  lower  level;  and  that  individual  sheathing  or 
soul  goes  on  from  life  to  life  in  the  long  chain  of 
earthly  lives,  taking  upon  it  a  succession  of  per- 
sonalities; and  this  has  been  the  case  with  our 
patron  saint  as  well  as  with  us.  At  any  one  of 
these  levels  and  through  any  one  of  these  vehicles 
we  may  come  into  touch  with  the  divine,  because 
God  manifests  Himself  at  all  levels.  We  come  into 
touch  with  our  Lord  here  on  the  physical  plane 
when  we  come  to  the  Sacrament  of  His  altar ;  but 
we  may  come  into  touch  with  Him  through  our 
emotions,  when  we  can  raise  our  consciousness  out 
of  the  mere  physical  into  the  emotional  body.  We 
may  come  into  touch  with  Him  through  our  mind, 
if  that  mind  be  pure  enough  and  high  enough,  and 


302  Ghe  Christian  Festivals 

if  the  soul  within  it  be  so  far  developed  that  it  can 
use  that  mind  as  a  vehicle;  and  so  by  degrees  we 
can  rise  to  the  level  of  the  soul  itself,  and  be  con- 
scious through  it.  The  soul  is  the  ego  in  the  causal 
body,  and  at  that  level  also  we  can  contact  the 
divine.  But  it  is  only  the  few  among  us  who  are 
free  from  the  physical  fetters. 

The  great  saint  rises  beyond  all  that,  and  at 
higher  levels  still  he  becomes  one  with  the  Deity. 
The  higher  the  level  we  can  reach,  the  more  nearly 
and  the  more  really  do  we  come  into  contact  with 
the  Deity,  and  with  the  Christ  Who  is  His  Repre- 
sentative and  part  of  Him.  That  is  the  difference 
between  the  great  saint  and  ourselves,  that  he 
reaches  far  higher  up  in  his  contact  with  the  Deity. 
He  is  one  with  Him,  and  so  are  we;  but  we  are  one 
at  the  circumference  of  the  circle — one  with  God 
through  His  outer  garment.  The  great  saint,  the 
Master,  draws  near  to  the  heart  of  that  circle.  To 
reach  that  heart  and  to  become  one  with  God  fully 
and  at  the  highest  level — that  is  the  goal  that  we 
set  before  ourselves,  all  alike.  That  the  Buddhists 
call  the  attainment  of  Nirvana,  or  perhaps  Maha- 
paranirvana,  the  highest  state  that  lies  beyond  that 
unthinkable  condition  of  bliss. 

We  do  not  want  a  saint  to  pray  for  us.  We  do 
not  think  it  necessary  that  any,  however  high,  should 
call  us  to  the  notice  of  God,  because  we  know  full 
well  that  we  also,  however  humble,  are  part  of  Him; 
we  know  that  God  is  already  doing  for  us  all  that 
it  is  possible  for  Him  to  do  at  the  level  where  we 
now  stand.  He  needs  no  reminder;  He  needs  no 
intercessor  to  speak  with  Him  for  us.  He  knows 
far  more  than  any  intercessor  could  know,  and  He 


Festivals  of  the  Saints  303 

is  ever  near  to  us.  It  is  not  that  that  we  want 
from  our  patron  saint;  we  ask  merely  that  he  should 
act  for  us  as  a  channel.  Wherever  he  may  be  we 
can  reach  him;  he  may  be  again  in  incarnation.  He 
may  hare  a  physical  body  such  as  you  and  I  have, 
though  his  would  naturally  be  far  higher,  far  purer, 
far  better  than  ours;  or  his  consciousness  may  be 
on  any  one  of  the  many  planes  or  worlds  that  extend 
about  us.  But  wheresoever  he  is,  our  thought  can 
reach  him,  our  earnest  aspiration  can  reach  him,  our 
love  can  reach  him. 

When  it  does  so  reach  him,  what  do  we  want 
him  to  do  for  us?  To  call  a  church  by  his 
name  makes  a  real  link  with  him;  it  attracts  his 
attention,  and  he  then  takes  it  as  a  medium  for 
his  work  and  his  force.  He  is,  if  we  may 
venture  to  say  so,  glad  that  someone,  some  church, 
some  body  of  people  should  appeal  to  him  in 
order  that  he  niay  be  the  channel  for  them.  Be- 
cause, again,  if  we  may  very  humbly  venture  to  say 
so,  the  great  Ones  Themselves  make  further  progress 
in  so  far  as  They  are  able  to  help,  in  so  far  as  They 
are  able  to  be  the  channel  for  others.  And  so  what 
we  ask  from  our  patron  saint  is  his  kindly  thought, 
sometimes,  perhaps,  his  inspiration — yes,  and  some- 
times actually  his  advice,  for  remember  that  he  is 
a  great  living  power,  that  he  can  be  reached,  and 
that  our  thought  can  be  laid  beside  his,  so  that 
through  the  thought  which  he  puts  into  our  minds 
we  can  know  what  is  his  opinion  on  certain  sub- 
jects. There  are  those  who  can  meet  him  face  to 
face  on  his  own  higher  levels,  and  can  ask  what- 
ever we  want  to  ask  from  him. 


304  The  Christian  Festivals 

That  is  what  we  gain  from  him,  and  we  owe  him 
most  emphatically  our  gratitude  and  our  love  for 
that  which  he  has  already  done  for  us.  We  do  not 
worship  any  saint;  nobody  does  worship  any  saint. 
That  is  one  of  the  many  weird  misconceptions  which 
arise  from  ignorance,  the  almost  invincible  ignor- 
ance of  the  man  who  knows  nothing  about  theology 
and  nothing  about  these  higher  levels,  but  is  never- 
theless filled  with  the  craziest  prejudice  against 
everything  he  does  not  understand.  Ask  any  Roman 
priest  or  bishop  or  well-instructed  layman  whether 
he  worships  a  saint,  and  he  will  say  to  you:  "If 
you  like  to  mistranslate  the  word  in  that  way,  yes; 
but  if  you  mean  the  same  worship  we  give  to  God, 
then  most  emphatically  no."  Our  language  is  poor 
in  this  respect,  and  we  have  not  the  proper  words; 
I  have  already  written  of  the  super-reverence  due 
to  Our  Lady,  of  the  reverence  paid  to  the  saints,  and 
of  the  absolute  worship,  the  desire  to  become  one 
with  Him  which  is  offered  to  God  alone,  and  in 
the  nature  of  things  could  never  be  offered  to  any- 
one else. 

Therefore  it  is  not  worship  that  we  offer  to  our 
patron  saint,  but  we  recognize  his  kindly  help,  and 
we  are  grateful  for  it.  We  recognize  that  he  stands 
on  one  of  the  great  Rays,  and  on  his  Day  we  speci- 
ally decorate  the  shrine  of  that  Ray  in  honour  of 
him.  So  what  we  feel  to  him  is  love  and  grati- 
tude. Let  us  all  join  therefore  in  blessing  God  for 
the  help  that  our  patron  saint  has  given  us,  and 
for  the  noble  example  he  has  set  before  usf 


CHAPTEE  XVI 

BRIEF  NOTES  UPON  SOME  OF  THE  SAINTS 

ST.  ALBAN 

St.  Alban  is  the  patron  saint  of  several  of  our 
churches.  He  was  very  closely  associated  with  our 
country  of  England,  with  the  Church  and  with 
Freemasonry,  and  played  an  important  part  in  all 
of  them.  He  was  a  man  of  noble  Roman  family, 
born  at  the  town  of  Verulam,  in  England,  which  is 
now  after  him  called  St.  Albans.  Verulam  was  at 
that  time  the  capital  of  Roman  England,  though  it 
is  now  but  a  small  place. 

Not  many  details  are  known  of  his  life.  The  most 
prominent  force  in  it  was  a  life-long  friend  of  his 
called  Amphibalus,  a  monk  of  Carleon,  in  Wales, 
though,  I  think,  a  Frenchman  by  birth.  Those  two 
were  unusually  close  friends,  and  Amphibalus  un- 
doubtedly exercised  a  great  influence  over  Alban,  or 
Albanus,  as  his  name  was  in  Latin.  They  went  to- 
gether to  Rome  as  young  men.  Alban  was  not  then 
a  Christian;  he  followed  the  ordinary  religion  of  the 
time,  but  Amphibalus  was  a  monk,  and  it  was  un- 
doubtedly due  to  Alban 's  association  with  Amphi- 
balus that  he  later  became  a  Christian.  Alban 
joined  the  Roman  army,  and  achieved  considerable 
distinction  in  it.  He  served  in  Rome  for  some  seven 
years  at  any  rate,  perhaps  longer  than  that.  It  was 
in  Rome  that  he  learnt  his  Freemasonry,  and  also 
became  proficient  in  the  Mithraic  mysteries  which 
were  closely  associated  with  it  in  those  days. 

305 


306  The  Christian  Festivals 

After  this  time  in  Borne  he  returned  to  his  birth- 
place in  England,  and  was  appointed  governor  of 
the  fortress  there.  He  also  held  the  position  of 
1  'the  master  of  the  works,'7  whatever  that  may  have 
meant;  he  certainly  superintended  the  repairs  and 
the  general  work  in  the  fortress  at  Verulam,  and 
he  was  at  the  same  time  the  Imperial  Paymaster. 
The  story  goes  that  the  workmen  were  treated  as 
slaves  and  wretchedly  paid,  but  that  St.  Alban  in- 
troduced Freemasonry  and  changed  all  that,  secur- 
ing for  them  better  wages  and  greatly  improved  con7- 
ditions  generally.  Freemasons  will  have  heard  of 
the  Watson  manuscript  of  1687.  In  that  a  good 
deal  is  said  about  St.  Alban  ?s  work  for  the  Craft, 
and  it  is  especially  mentioned  that  he  brought  from 
France  certain  ancient  charges  which  are  practically 
identical  with  those  in  use  at  the  present  time. 

He  became  a  Christian  through  the  influence  and 
example  of  Amphibalus,  and  he  was  martyred  in  the 
great  persecution  of  the  Emperor  Diocletian,  whieh 
began  in  the  year  303,  because  he  sheltered  Amphi- 
balus and  refused  to  give  him  up.  I  have  myself 
visited  the  place  of  that  martyrdom — a  rounded  hill 
outside  the  town  of  St.  Albans.  The  story  of  the 
Roman  Church  is  that  a  spring  arose  magically  to 
slake  the  thirst  of  the  martyr.  The  spring  is  cer- 
tainly there,  but  I  cannot  guarantee  its  origin.  Offa, 
King  of  Mercia,  built  a  great  abbey  in  the  year  795 
over  the  shrine  which  was  erected  for  St.  Alban.  His 
disciples  embalmed  his  body,  and  it  may  still  be  seen 
in  the  Abbey;  the  head  is  visible  through  a  broken 
part  of  the  shrine. 

Soon  after  that  he  had  another  important  incar- 
nation; he  was  born  in  Constantinople  in  the  year 


St.  Jtlban  307 

and  received  the  name  of  Proclus — the  name 
which  in  after  life  he  was  destined  to  make  famous. 
He  was  one  of  the  last  great  exponents  of  Neoplaton- 
ism — of  that  great  philosophy  of  which  we  hear  so 
much  at  the  time  of  Christ,  and  a  little  later.  His 
influence  overshadowed  to  a  great  extent  the 
mediaeval  Christian  Church.  After  that  there  is  a 
gap,  as  to  which  at  present  we  know  nothing.  We 
find  him  reborn  in  the  year  1211,  and  in  that  life 
he  was  Roger  Bacon,  a  Franciscan  friar,  who  was 
a  reformer  both  of  the  theology  and  science  of  his 
day.  He  was  a  great  experimentalist,  and  he  in- 
vented gunpowder,  but  for  that  I  do  not  know 
whether  we  should  be  grateful  to  him  or  not.  In 
the  process  of  his  invention  he  seriously  injured 
himself,  which  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  kind  of  man 
he  was — a  daring  experimentalist  and  scientist,  as 
exact  as  at  that  period  a  man  could  be. 

In  1375  came  his  birth  as  Christian  Rosenkreutz. 
That  was  also  a  birth  of  considerable  importance,  for 
in  it  he  founded  the  secret  society  of  the  Rosicru- 
cians — a  society  which  has  not  really  died  out,  al- 
though it  is  supposed  to  have  done  so.  Various 
organizations  claim  its  name  and  some  of  its  teach- 
ings; the  original  society  still  remains,  but  it  is 
absolutely  secret.  Meantime  we  have  the  knowledge 
of  the  Rosicrucians,  but  in  a  somewhat  different 
form,  in  what  is  called  Theosophy,  and  also  in  Free- 
masonry, though  in  the  latter  it  is  veiled  in  allegory. 

It  is  stated  by  Mrs.  Besant  that  he  again  took 
birth  some  fifty  years  later,  or  a  little  more  than 
that,  as  John  Hunyadi,  an  eminent  Hungarian  sol- 
dier and  leader.  I  have  not  seen  anything  myself 
of  that  life,  but  we  are  told  that  about  1500  he  had 


308  The  Christian  Festivals 

a  life  as  the  monk  Robertus  somewhere  in  middle 
Europe.  We  know  practically  nothing  about  that, 
as  to  what  he  did  or  in  what  way  he  distinguished 
himself. 

After  that  comes  one  of  the  greatest  of  his 
births,  for  in  the  year  1561  he  was  born  as  Francis 
Bacon.  Of  Francis  Bacon  in  history  we  hear  little 
that  is  true  and  a  great  deal  that  is  false.  The 
facts  of  the  case  are  gradually  becoming  known, 
largely  by  means  of  a  cypher  story  which  he  wrote 
secretly  in  the  works  which  he  published.  It  ap- 
pears from  that  that  he  was  the  son  of  no  less  a 
person  than  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  married  Sir 
Robert  Dudley,  afterward  the  Earl  of  Leicester, 
when  they  were  both  prisoners  in  the  Tower.  Such 
a  marriage  as  that  was  not  legal,  but  at  a  later  time 
it  was  legalized,  so  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  was 
Francis  the  King,  as  he  calls  himself  in  the 
cypher,  and  that  he  should  have  been  King  of  Eng- 
land instead  of  James  I.  There  were  various  rea- 
sons why  he  bound  himself  by  a  pledge  to  his 
mother  not  to  let  the  fact  of  his  birth  be  known. 
The  whole  story  is  written  in  his  cypher,  and  a 
considerable  literature  on  the  subject  has  been  pub- 
lished by  the  Baconian  Society,  which  takes  up  the 
study  of  his  life,  and  shows  that  he  was  the  real 
author  of  the  plays  which  he  chose  to  "attribute  to 
Shakespeare.  There  is  a  good  book  on  the  subject 
entitled  The  Eldest  Son  of  Queen  Elizabeth  pub- 
lished here  in  Sydney,  written  by  a  Mrs.  Nicholls, 
in  which  we  find  many  of  the  arguments  and  proofs 
adduced. 

In  his  youth  he  went  to  Paris,  and  he  got  into  con- 
nection there  with  a  certain  body  of  literary  men, 


St.  Jllban  309 

who,  because  they  were  seven,  called  themselves  the 
Pleiades.  These  men,  who  were  deep  students  of 
philology,  had  practically  recreated  the  French  lan- 
guage. They  found  it  a  chaotic  mixture  of  barbarous 
jargons;  they  put  it  together  and  made  it  into  a 
noble  language.  Bacon  was  at  once  impressed  with 
the  great  necessity  of  doing  the  same  thing  for  Eng- 
lish, and  when  he  returned  to  England  after  some 
years  in  Paris,  he  set  to  work  to  reconstitute  the 
English  language.  He  shows  us  what  it  was  before 
his  time,  and  he  constructed,  out  of  the  various  dia- 
lects then  spoken,  English  as  we  know  it  to-day. 
That  he  did  largely  by  writing  the  plays  attributed 
to  Shakespeare,  and  also  (perhaps  chiefly)  by  edit- 
ing the  Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible,  which  was 
then  being  translated  by  a  committee  of  forty-eight 
under  the  direction  of  King  James  I.  Bacon,  being 
Chancellor,  kept  himself  in  the  background,  but  he 
superintended  and  edited  the  whole  volume,  so  that 
absolutely  the  same  style  and  the  same  type  of  lan- 
guage runs  all  through  it,  although  the  original  is 
written  by  a  large  number  of  different  authors  in 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  although  there  were  forty- 
eight  nominal  translators.  We  may  note  the  dif- 
ference if  we  compare  King  James'  translation  with 
the  Revised  Version,  which  is  also  the  result  of  the 
work  of  a  committee  of  people;  in  the  latter  we  can 
clearly  see  the  differences  of  style  in  the  various 
parts.  There  must  have  been  close  supervision  over 
the  Authorized  Version,  and  the  supervisor  was 
Bacon.  He  wrote  many  other  books  also;  alto- 
gether a  vast  amount  of  literature  was  put  forth 
by  him. 


310  The  Christian  Festivals 

A  century  later  we  are  told  that  he  took  birth  as 
Ivan  Rakoczy,  a  prince  of  Transylvania.  We  find 
him  mentioned  in  the  encyclopaedias,  but  not  much 
information  is  given.  He  still  uses  that  name  some- 
times; I  have  myself  seen  and  photographed  one  of 
his  signatures.  After  that  considerable  mystery  sur- 
rounds his  movements.  He  seems  to  have  travelled 
about  Europe,  and  he  turns  up  at  intervals,  but  we 
have  little  definite  information  about  him.  He  was 
the  Comte  de  St.  Germain  at  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution.  He  also  appears  to  have  disguised  him- 
self as  Baron  Hompesch,  who  was  the  last  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  John  of  Malta,  the  man  who  arranged 
the  transfer  of  the  island  of  Malta  to  the  English. 
This  saint  and  teacher  still  lives,  and  his  present 
body  has  no  appearance  of  great  age.  I  myself  met 
him  physically  in  Rome  in  1901,  and  had  a  long 
conversation  with  him. 

He  is  the  Prince  Adept  at  the  head  of  the  Seventh 
Ray,  which  is  now  beginning  to  rule  the  world  in 
the  place  of  the  Sixth  Ray,  whose  characteristic  was 
devotion — degenerating  into  rather  blind  and  unin- 
telligent manifestations  sometimes  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  I  am  afraid.  Naturally  he  is  deeply  interested 
both  in  the  work  of  the  Church  and  in  Freemasonry 
— cults  which  are  in  reality  two  expressions  of  the 
same  eternal  truth,  though  they  are  popularly  sup- 
posed to  be  diametrically  opposed.  We  have  much 
for  which  to  thank  him  now  in  this  present  day,  as 
well  as  for  those  earlier  achievements  of  his — the 
magnificent  gift  of  the  English  language,  the  intro- 
duction of  Freemasonry  into  England,  and  the 
moulding  of  Christian  mediaeval  metaphysical  and 
philosophical  thought. 


St.  George  311 

ST.    GEOEGB 

St.  George  is  the  patron  saint  of  England.  There 
is  considerable  doubt  as  to  his  history.  He  is 
usually  spoken  of  as  of  Cappadocia,  yet  it  seems  he 
was  born  in  Lydda  in  Palestine.  That  is  where  his 
family  lived;  that  is  where  he  was  buried  and  where 
his  shrine  is  shown  to-day.  That  shrine  was  cer- 
tainly accepted  as  his  tomb  in  Crusading  days,  be- 
cause we  read  again  and  again  of  Crusaders  as  mak- 
ing a  pilgrimage  to  that  shrine.  He  was  born  of  a 
noble  Christian  family,  and  he  entered  the  Roman 
army  and  served  with  distinction  under  the  Emperor 
Diocletian. 

The  Emperor  Diocletian  is  said  at  one  time  to 
have  persecuted  the  Christians.  The  stories  of  the 
so-called  Christian  persecutions  have  been  so  enor- 
mously exaggerated  and  misrepresented  that  clair- 
voyant investigators  have  learnt  to  regard  them  with 
a  good  deal  of  incredulity.  So  far  as  our  investi- 
gations have  gone  we  have  found  again  and  again 
that  Christians  suffered  not  because  of  their  religion 
but  rather  because  of  the  political  opinions  which 
many  of  them  held,  much  in  the  same  way  as  Jews 
have  been  indiscriminately  persecuted  in  Russia.  In 
fact  the  early  Christians  seem  to  have  been  regarded 
as  the  anarchists,  the  Bolsheviks  of  that  period, 
and  when  they  came  into  conflict  with  the  Govern- 
ment it  was  not  on  account  of  their  faith,  for  the 
Romans  were  a  most  tolerant  people,  believing  little 
themselves,  arid  caring  still  less  what  others  believed. 
It  was  usually  on  account  oi  their  refusal  to  show 
the  ordinary  respect  to  the  Emperor. 

There  were  certain  little  ceremonies  which  were  at 
that  time  considered  as  part  of  the  ordinary  amenities 


312  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  daily  life — little  acts  of  courtesy  showing  friendly 
remembrance  of  the  Emperor  and  loyalty  to  him, 
corresponding  exactly  to  drinking  the  health  of  the 
King  at  the  head  of  every  list  of  toasts,  and  rising 
when  the  National  Anthem  is  sung  at  the  end  of 
every  entertainment.  It  was  the  custom  then  that 
whenever  a  man  was  about  to  drink  a  cup  of  wine, 
he  should  first  pour  out  a  few  drops  upon  the  floor 
as  a  libation  to  the  gods  in  honour  of  the  Emperor. 
The  idea  behind  the  action  was  that  a  tiny  offering 
of  kindly  thought  was  made  to  the  Deity  on  be- 
half of  the  Emperor — a  little  prayer  that  he  might 
be  strengthened  and  helped  in  the  onerous  work  that 
was  laid  upon  him.  With  exactly  the  same  object 
it  was  also  the  custom  each  morning  and  each  even- 
ing to  throw  a  pinch  of  incense  on  to  the  fire  which 
was  ever  burning  on  the  domestic  altar,  accom- 
panying it  with  a  word  of  aspiration  for  the 
Emperor's  health  and  prosperity. 

These  little  observances  seem  harmless  enough;  but 
the  early  Christian  was  often  rather  a  cantankerous 
and  pharisaical  person,  and  it  appears  to  have  been 
one  of  his  unpleasing  habits  to  refuse  these  trifling 
courtesies  on  the  plea  that  they  were  idolatrous,  and 
ascribed  divine  honours  to  the  Emperor.  These 
customs  had  come  down  through  thousands  of  years. 
They  had  been  observed  in  Chaldsea,  in  Babylonia,  in 
Assyria,  and  many  other  countries,  and  no  one  had 
thought  them  harmful.  If  the  early  Christians  felt 
these  things  to  be  wrong,  if  it  was  against  their 
conscience  to  throw  that  pinch  of  incense  into  the 
fire,  then  they  were  right  to  die  sooner  than  do  it ;  but 
it  seems  rather  an  unnecessary  thing  for  which  to 
die.  It  is  a  matter  of  conscience,  and  no  man  can 


St.  George  313 

decide  for  another.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  if  I  had  been 
living  on  earth  in  those  days,  I  should  have  been 
quite  willing  to  show  the  same  courtesy  to  Caesar  that 
millions  of  other  people  have  shown  to  their  respec- 
tive sovereigns  all  through  the  ages,  without  the  least 
thought  of  infringing  upon  the  honour  of  any  sen- 
sible deity.  But  these  early  Christians  would  not 
do  it. 

Naturally  people  who  thought  it  their  duty  to 
make  themselves  objectionable  in  that  particular  way 
were  quite  likely  to  be  roughly  handled  and  sus- 
pected of  disloyalty,  much  as  a  man  who  refused  to 
drink  the  health  of  the  King  or  to  stand  when  the 
National  Anthem  was  being  played  would  probably 
be  suspected  among  ourselves.  One  can  understand 
that  a  man  who  is  a  rigid  teetotaler  might  even  go 
so  far  as  to  decline  to  drink  the  health  of  the  King. 
One  can  even  to  a  certain  extent  respect  the  con- 
sistency of  such  a  man,  though  one  might  not  in 
the  least  agree  with  him  and  would  consider  him 
lacking  in  discrimination  and  sense  of  proportion. 
I  myself,  though  a  life-long  total  abstainer,  should 
certainly  not  refuse,  though  I  should  prefer  to 
drink  the  health  in  water  if  it  were  obtainable.  It 
seems  to  me  a  far  less  evil  to  take  a  microscopic 
quantity  of  alcohol  into  my  system  (an  action  from 
which  no  one  suffers  but  myself)  than  to  arouse  in 
the  minds  of  the  people  around  me  the  indignation 
which  they  might  quite  justifiably  feel  if  they  had 
reason  to  suspect  me  of  disloyalty.  It  would  be  a 
case  of  "avoiding  the  very  appearance  of  evil."  I 
think  the  ancient  martyrs  often  immolated  them- 
selves unnecessarily  for  matters  as  small  as  that. 
Probably  something  of  that  sort  was  the  reason  of 


314  The  Christian  Festivals 

the  feeling  against  the  Christians  as  a  rule,  for  the 
Romans  were  great  sticklers  for  law,  order  and 
custom,  and  expected  everyone  to  conform  to  what 
was  thought  best  for  the  community  as  a  whole. 

We  have  also  to  remember  that  many  of  these 
early  Christians  in  their  misguided  enthusiasm 
wished  to  be  martyred,  and  were  prepared  to  go  to 
any  lengths  to  gratify  their  desire.  If  we  read  the 
life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  we  shall  find  that  a 
number  of  people  connected  with  him  (although  I 
do  not  think  he  was  responsible  for  their  foolish- 
ness) resolved  to  get  themselves  martyred  at  any 
cost.  They  went  to  Morocco,  and  ran  after  the  car- 
riage of  the  Emir  in  the  open  streets,  shouting  insults 
at  him  as  a  heathen.  The  Emir  very  naturally  sup- 
posed them  to  be  insane,  and  was  at  first  good- 
humouredly  tolerant  of  their  rudeness,  but  as  they 
persisted  and  became  more  and  more  abusive,  he 
eventually  imprisoned  and  executed  them.  They  con- 
sidered themselves  great  and  glorious  martyrs;  look- 
ing back  upon  the  incident  with  impartial  eyes,  we 
can  regard  them  only  as  ill-mannered  fanatics  who 
intruded  where  they  were  not  wanted,  and  were 
quite  justifiably  suppressed.  Myself  I  have  not  the 
slightest  sympathy  for  that  kind  of  martyr! 

There  was  one  of  these  so-called  persecutions  of 
the  Christians  under  Diocletian,  and  the  story  is 
that  St.  George,  who  stood  high  in  the  Roman  army, 
ventured  to  protest  and  to  rebuke  the  Emperor.  It 
is  not  a  safe  thing  to  rebuke  an  absolute  Emperor, 
and  Diocletian  promptly  banished  him  and  seems  to 
have  felt  rather  hurt  about  it. 

St.  George  considered  apparently  that  his  faith 
required  him  to  make  a  demonstration,  so  even  when 


St.  George  315 

banished  to  Asia  Minor  he  continued  to  adopt  an 
aggressive  attitude;  he  finally  got  himself  into  some 
open  trouble  and  was  put  to  death  in  Nicomedia. 
There  is  some  doubt  about  the  historical  details,  but 
the  year  303  is  usually  given  as  the  date  of  his 
death.  An  earlier  year  is  preferred  by  some 
students,  and  there  appears  to  have  been  some  con- 
fusion between  him  and  an  Aryan  bishop  of  the 
same  name.  There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
St.  George  was  a  historical  person,  but  as  to  the 
story  which  represents  all  that  most  of  us  know  about 
him,  the  tale  of  his  slaying  the  dragon,  there  is 
considerable  uncertainty.  This  at  least  stands  out 
as  a  fact,  that  very  near  Lydda  is  the  traditional 
place  where  the  sea-monster  who  came  to  attack  the 
maiden  Andromeda  was  slain  by  Perseus.  Many 
historians  have  thought  that  because  these  two 
legends  were  attached  to  the  same  place  they  gradu- 
ally became  confused,  and  the  Christians  took  the 
feat  of  the  Greek  hero  Perseus  and  attributed  it  to 
St.  George.  That  is  not  improbable.  It  might 
quite  easily  have  happened  so,  because  there  is  no 
doubt  that  in  many  cases  stories,  which  existed  cen- 
turies before  the  life  of  Christ,  reappear  in  early 
Christianity,  attributed  to  Christian  heroes  instead 
of  to  those  of  the  earlier  days.  All  history  in  those 
days  was  much  more  fluidic,  much  less  certain  than 
now,  so  I  do  not  think  we  need  be  in  any  way  shocked 
if  the  story  should  prove  to  be  one  of  the  old  myths 
carried  on  to  the  present  day.  Of  course  we  can 
find  for  it  various  symbolicar  meanings,  and  per- 
haps that  is  the  wise  way  to  deal  with  it,  because 
short  of  elaborate  clairvoyant  investigation  there 


316  The  Christian  Festivals 

can  be  no  certainty  that  the  thing  took  place  as  it 
is  usually  believed. 

The  idea  of  a  dragon  is  commonly  supposed  to  be 
quite  mythical,  but  there  are  considerations  in 
favour  of  the  occasional  appearance  of  such  crea- 
tures. We  know  that  in  the  earlier  days  of  the 
earth  there  were  great  flying  reptiles,  and  it  is  not 
impossible  that  single  specimens  may  have  survived 
into  what  we  may  call  historical  periods.  There  is 
a  story  going  about  that  some  prehistoric  monsters 
still  survive  in  central  Africa.  I  believe  they  are 
looking  for  a  brontosaurus  there  at  the  present  day. 
There  may  be  a  foundation  for  some  of  the  numerous 
dragon  stories,  but  whether  in  this  particular  case 
Perseus  or  St.  George  was  the  slayer  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  say.  At  any  rate  tradition  has  indissolubly 
associated  St.  George  and  his  dragon,  and  he  has 
now  become  a  kind  of  symbol.  He  was  in  earlier 
days  the  patron  saint  of  Genoa  in  Italy ;  he  was  not 
adopted  as  the  patron  saint  of  England  until  the 
reign  of  King  Edward  III,  but  since  then  his  cross 
has  been  the  banner  of  England,  and  he  has  been 
invoked  as  our  patron  saint,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
see  why  he  was  elevated  to  that  honour.  It  would 
have  been  in  some  ways  more  natural  if  we  had 
adopted  the  first  English  Martyr,  St.  Alban,  who 
was  also  a  great  soldier  of  the  Roman  army;  but  St. 
George  has  been  chosen,  and  no  one  thinks  of 
changing  that  now.  However,  it  does  not  matter 
whether  St.  George  did  or  did  not  do  anything  in 
particular  to  entitle  him  to  the  position  of  patron 
saint  of  a  great  Empire.  I  presume  that  he  must 
have  done  something  to  earn  that  good  karma.  Un- 
questionably to  have  been  so  appointed  means  that 


St.  George  317 

a  great  many  people  make  thought-forms  of  him 
and  pour  their  aspiration  and  devotion  through  him 
to  a  very  considerable  extent.  It  is  exceedingly  good 
for  him  as  well  as  for  us,  for  we  may  say  that  a 
patron  saint,  whether  it  be  of  a  church  or  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  nation,  is  a  channel  through  which  we 
send  up  our  stream  of  devotion  and  affection  to  the 
Divine.  Then  back  through  him  flows  the  stream  of 
grace  and  blessing  to  us.  Therefore,  it  is  a  good 
thing  for  the  patron  saint,  as  well  as  for  the  country, 
the  church  or  the  person.  Thus  the  patron  saint 
is  a  link,  a  chosen  link  with  higher  planes.  Any 
country  whose  rulers  were  wise  enough  to  get  into 
touch  with  the  two  lines  of  direction  which  exist  on 
higher  planes  might  unquestionably  gain  a  certain 
amount  of  help  and  advice  in  -that  way.  We  speak 
always  of  the  two  sides  of  the  government  of  the 
world,  one  being  the  directing  of  the  physical  world 
done  by  the  Manu  of  the  Root  Race,  Who  guides  the 
Race  in  its  migrations,  and  moulds  its  development  in 
various  ways.  He  is  the  Spiritual  King  and  Ruler  oi 
the  Race.  The  other  side  is  that  of  the  Spiritual 
Teacher  of  the  race.  There  are  physical  represen- 
tatives for  these  two  lines,  and  there  is  also  the 
guardian  Angel  of  a  race.  All  the  beautiful  legends 
of  guardian  angels  and  race-spirits  are  not  merely 
childish  stories.  There  are  facts  behind  them,  and 
we  shall  find  that  these  realities  produce  a  definite 
effect  down  here  on  planes  that  we  can  reach  and 
realize  and  understand.  Behind  each  race  stands  a 
patron  saint,  if  it  has  selected  one,  and  an  Angel 
Gruardian  (a  deva,  as  they  call  it  in  India — a  shin- 
ing one)  ;  and  each  of  these  two  has  his  depart- 


318  The  Christian  Festivals 

ment,  and  between  them  they  take  charge  of  the 
two  sides  of  the  development  of  the  race.  If  the 
race  knows  of  such  things,  and  is  willing  to  be 
guided  and  directed,  then  it  gets  very  much  more 
from  these  great  officials.  If  it  does  not  know,  it 
gets  less;  but  anyhow  they  are  there  and  they  exer- 
cise such  influence  as  they  can. 

Probably  we  have  all  heard  some  of  the  strange 
stories  of  the  appearance  of  St.  George  at  the  head 
of  the  English  troops  in  France  during  the  recent 
war,  and  have  wondered  whether  any  credence  can 
be  attached  to  them.  They  are  quite  circumstantial, 
and  the  doubt  cast  upon  them  seems  to  have  arisen 
mainly  because  a  story  was  written  before  the  ap- 
pearance in  which  his  name  was  mentioned.  Yet 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  evidence  that  some  inter- 
ference of  some  sort  did  occur  there  in  France  at 
a  very  critical  period  of  the  war  and  that  someone 
not  of  the  physical  plane  did  encourage  the  troops 
and  led  them  on  to  victory.  The  English  called  him 
St.  George — that  would  be  the  first  idea  that  would 
occur  to  them;  the  French  called  him  St.  Michael  or 
St.  Denys,  and  in  other  parts  of  the  field  they  saw 
also  their  great  heroine,  Joan  of  Arc. 

There  is  evidence  for  all  these  apparitions.  I 
personally  have  no  doubt  that  there  were  inter- 
ferences from  the  inner  world,  but  whether  St. 
George  or  St.  Michael  or  Joan  of  Arc  had  anything 
to  do  with  them  I  do  not  know.  Dead  people  of 
both  nations  would  certainly  wish  to  help;  great 
military  leaders  of  the  past  still  in  touch  with  the 
earth  may  have  wished  to  interfere,  and  if  they 
were  able  to  show  themselves  it  is  fairly  certain 
that  they  would  be  taken  for  some  of  the  saints. 


St.  Patrick  319 

They  may  even  have  intentionally  taken  the  forms 
of  such  saints  in  order  to  recommend  themselves  to 
the  people,  because,  owing  to  the  foolish  modern 
attitude  towards  apparitions  of  all  sorts,  people  are 
more  liable  to  be  frightened  than  helped  by  any- 
thing unusual,  whereas  all  the  French  Catholics 
would  welcome  the  appearance  of  a  saint  and  would 
not  be  in  the  least  afraid  of  him.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  traditional  form  of  some  of  these  saints 
may  have  been  taken  by  some  who  wished  to  help. 

Those  who  belong  to  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church 
should  try  to  understand  the  real  meaning  of  all 
such  occurrences.  We  must  not  be  obsessed  with 
the  absurd  Calvinistic  prejudice  that  there  can  be 
no  truth  whatever  in  anything  that  is  said  about 
the  saints.  When  we  look  more  deeply  into  the  facts 
of  the  case  we  shall  see  that  all  these  beautiful  old 
legends  have  their  part  to  play — that  they  have  all 
helped  the  human  race  and  that  there  is  no  reason 
why  we,  who  have  advanced  a  little  further  in 
knowledge  and  understand  more  fully  what  they 
mean,  should  therefore  look  down  upon  those  who 
believed  them  once  in  a  more  literal  fashion.  It  will 
be  indeed  well  for  us  if  we  are  able  to  get  through 
these  channels  as  much  help  as  our  more  ignorant 
forefathers  obtained. 

ST.  PATRICK 

Just  as  St.  George  is  the  patron  saint  of  England, 
so  is  the  holy  St.  Patrick  the  patron  saint  of  Ire- 
land. There  is  again  some  uncertainty  as  to  the 
exact  date  and  place  of  his  birth,  but  we  are  able 
to  say  from  clairvoyant  investigation  that  there 
really  was  such  a  person — that  the  theory  that  he 


320  The  Christian  Festivals 

is  merely  a  mythological  character  is  without  foun- 
dation. He  is  a  real  historical  person,  and  he  did 
convert  a  great  part  of  Ireland  to  the  Christian 
faith. 

The  date  of  his  birth  seems  to  have  been  about 
the  year  387,  though  some  put  it  a  little  earlier  than 
that.  Two  places  claim  the  honour  of  being  his 
birthplace — Kilpatrick,  near  Dumbarton  in  Scot- 
land, and  a  village  near  Boulogne  in  France.  On 
the  whole  the  balance  of  evidence  seems  'to  be  in 
favour  of  Boulogne.  In  any  case  it  is  certain  that 
he  was  of  Roman  descent  and  that  he  was  born  in 
a  Keltic  country,  whether  it  be  Normandy  or  Scot- 
land. His  father  was  a  man  of  good  family,  spoken 
of  as  the  Deacon  Galphurnius.  Whether  he  ever 
attained  any  higher  level  in  the  Church  than  deacon 
we  do  not  know.  His  mother  was  named  Conchessa, 
and  she  was  either  a  sister  or  a  near  relative  of 
St.  Martin  of  Tours,  about  whom  we  have  all  heard 
the  celebrated  story  of  his  cutting  his  cloak  in  two 
(when  he  had  nothing  else  to  offer)  and  giving 
half  of  it  to  a  beggar.  Whichever  was  the  place  of 
his  birth,  the  youthful  Patrick  lived  near  the  sea- 
coast,  and  in  a  raid  of  Irish  pirates  he  was  captured 
and  carried  off  as  a  slave  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  He 
was  sold  in  Ireland  to  a  certain  Druid  priest  named 
Milchu,  and  he  stayed  with  him,  acting  as  a  shep- 
herd, for  some  five  years.  In  that  time  he  learnt 
the  Irish  tongue,  which  differs  somewhat  from  the 
dialect  spoken  in  Scotland  or  in  Brittany,  though 
all  these  are  variants  of  the  Gaelic  language. 

At  the  end  of  those  five  years  some  vision  led 
him  to  make  an  attempt  to  escape,  and  the  attempt 
was  successful.  He  contrived  with  great  trouble 


St.  Patrick  321 

and  many  privations  to  reach  the  sea-shore,  to  get 
on  board  a  ship,  and  eventually  to  reach  his  home. 
He  devoted  himself  earnestly  to  the  religious  life, 
and  was  for  some  considerable  time  in  a  monastery 
at  Tours  under  St.  Martin.  It  is  said  that  there 
came  to  him  a  vision  or  a  dream,  in  which  he  saw 
the  youths  with  whom  as  children  he  had  associated 
in  Ireland  calling  to  him  to  come  and  teach  them 
the  truth,  and  that  apparently  intensified  an  idea 
which  had  long  been  in  his  mind  that  he  would  like 
to  go  back  again  to  Ireland,  where  he  had  been 
enslaved,  and  try  to  teach  the  people  Christianity. 
It  is  not  certain  that  there  had  been  no  Christianity 
before  that  in  Ireland;  there  is  a  tradition,  at  any 
rate,  of  an  earlier  spreading  of  the  faith  in  the 
south  of  that  country.  The  pope  of  that  period, 
Celestine,  received  this  young  man  Patrick,  and 
after  some  years  of  preparation  gave  him  a  commis- 
sion to  go  and  preach  the  faith  in  Ireland.  He  was 
not  immediately  appointed,  because  Palladius  had 
already  applied  for  and  received  that  work.  But 
Palladius  seems  not  to  have  been  successful.  He 
landed  in  a  part  of  the  country  where  the  people 
were  not  prepared  to  receive  him,  and  became  dis- 
couraged. 

St.  Patrick  was  consecrated  as  bishop,  and  sent 
forth  to  preach  the  faith  in  Ireland.  He  landed 
there  in  the  year  432,  and  though  not  well  received 
at  first,  he  contrived  to  make  his  way,  and  eventu- 
ally travelled  over  the  whole  of  the  country.  Many 
stories  are  told  in  connection  with  his  travels  all 
over  Ireland.  He  appears  to  have  been  a  man  of 
indefatigable  industry.  It  is  recorded  that  he  con- 
secrated no  less  than  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 


322  The  Christian  Festivals 

churches  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  he 
is  said  with  his  own  hands  to  have  baptized  twelve 
thousand  converts  during  that  period.  He  met  with 
varied  reception,  but  he  seems  to  have  been  an 
exceedingly  skilful  and  politic  preacher  of  the  faith. 
He  invariably  began,  wherever  he  went,  by  convert- 
ing the  chief  and  his  family,  and  the  rest  followed 
the  lead  given  by  the  most  important  man  of  the 
district.  Where  some  local  king  or  chief  would  not 
receive  him,  he  moved  on  to  some  other  place,  but 
came  back  again  and  again  until  practically  the  chief 
yielded  to  him.  He  has  left  us  some  writings ;  one  of 
them,  at  any  rate,  many  of  you  know — the  Confes- 
sion of  St.  Patrick,  as  it  is  called — a  kind  of  creed 
in  which  he  emphasizes  strongly  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Trinity.  When  first  he  was  asked  how  Three 
could  yet  be  One,  he  stooped  and  plucked  a  leaf  of 
the  shamrock  and  held  it  up  before  the  people, 
saying:  "Here  at  least  is  an  example  that  there  may 
be  three  and  yet  one/'  A  crude  illustration,  but 
nevertheless  a  striking  one  for  the  people  to  whom 
he  was  preaching,  to  whom  the  whole  idea  was  new. 
And  that  is  why  the  shamrock  was  adopted  as  the 
national  symbol  of  Ireland,  as  it  remains  even  to 
this  day. 

He  lived  to  a  great  age.  There  is  a  little  difference 
of  opinion,  but  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  he  reached 
the  age  of  a  hundred  and  six,  for  he  died  in  the 
year  493  at  a  place  called  Saul,  near  Downpatrick 
in  Ireland.  His  remains  were  still  shown  there  up 
to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  when  I  fancy  the 
relics  were  lost. 


St.  Mark  323 

ST.   MARK 

As  is  the  case  with  so  many  of  these  bible  heroes, 
we  do  not  know  much  about  St.  Mark.  We  are  told 
that  he  was  the  cousin  of  Barnabas,  a  character  of 
whom  we  read  a  good  deal  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  and  it  is  also  the  tradition  that  he  was  a 
nephew  of  St.  Peter.  It  seems  at  any  rate  certain 
that  his  mother,  Mary,  was  a  woman  of  considerable 
distinction  in  Jerusalem,  and  that  at  her  house  the 
early  Christians  used  to  hold  meetings  for  quite  a 
long  time.  St.  Mark  founded  the  Church  at  Alex- 
andria, and  that  is  perhaps  one  reason  why  he  came 
forward  so  prominently  and  is  credited  with  the 
writing  of  a  gospel.  It  is  as  usual  not  at  all  certain 
that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the  gospel  which 
is  attributed  to  him.  These  gospels  were  written  in 
the  city  of  Alexandria,  a  good  deal  later  than  the 
date  usually  assigned  to  them,  and  it  is  very  natural 
that  one  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  earliest  should 
be  attributed  to  one  of  the  Founders  of  the  Church, 
who  is  spoken  of  as  the  interpreter  of  St.  Peter.  He 
is  reported  by  tradition  to  have  written  his  gospel 
in  Rome  from  Peter's  dictation.  That  is  not  likely, 
but  it  is  believed  by  the  highest  critics  that  St. 
Mark's  is  the  earliest  of  the  gospels,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  alleged  Hebrew  original  of  St.  Matthew, 
about  which  very  little  is  known  because  there  are 
no  copies  extant.  St.  Mark's  symbol  is  a  lion,  and 
those  who  have  had  the  privilege  of  visiting  his 
city,  Venice,  will  remember  that  the  great  cathedral 
there  is  dedicated  to  him,  and  in  the  piazza  in  front 
of  it  is  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark,  set  upon  a  tall  column. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
ALL  SAINTS'  DAY 

The  festival  of  All  Saints  lias  always  seemed  to 
me  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  Christian 
Year.  All  through  that  year  we  are  at  intervals 
celebrating  the  birthdays  of  the  great  ones  of  the 
Church,  just  as  in  private  life  we  celebrate  the  birth- 
days of  our  friends.  The  only  difference  is  that  in 
the  ecclesiastical  calendar  we  generally  celebrate  a 
saint's  birthday  not  into  this  physical  life,  but  into 
the  wider  life  of  the  higher  sphere;  that  is  to  say, 
we  keep  what  is  commonly  called  the  date  of  his 
death.  We  do  this  not  only  out  of  our  affection  for 
him,  but  in  order  to  recall  to  ourselves  the  noble 
example  which  he  has  set  us.  We  thank  God  for 
the  example  of  the  saint,  and  for  the  glorious  en- 
couragement of  his  success.  But  that  is  not  all; 
there  is  yet  something  more,  and  it  is  precisely  that 
something  more  which  is  often  so  sadly  misunder- 
stood. I  have  already  pointed  out  that  among  many 
who  call  themselves  Christians  the  idea  of  the  inter- 
cession of  the  saints  seems  to  arouse  an  amazing 
amount  of  incomprehensible  anger  and  prejudice. 
With  extraordinary  irascibility  they  clamour  that  it 
is  wicked  of  us  to  ask  help  of  the  saints,  and  further- 
more ridiculous  to  expect  it.  It  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  this  is  a  matter  in  which  we  should  use 
our  common  sense;  if  this  help  is  to  be  had,  it  must 
be  part  of  God's  scheme  and  under  His  providence, 
for  He  works  through  means  and  by  intermediaries, 
so  why  should  it  be  wicked  or  ridiculous  to  avail 

324 


All  Saints'  Day  325 

ourselves  of  it?    Let  us  consider  what  are  the  facts 
of  the  case. 

Any  great  religious  teacher  is  a  centre  of  inspira- 
tion and  of  active  help.  Take,  for  example,  one 
whom  many  of  us  know  and  love — Mrs.  Annie 
Besant.  Many  of  us  are  deeply  thankful  to  her  for 
the  teaching  given  in  her  books,  which  has  changed 
the  whole  aspect  of  life  for  thousands  of  men  and 
women;  but  we  are  also  profoundly  grateful  to  her 
for  her  inspiration  and  her  example,  as  well  as  in 
many  cases  for  direct  personal  advice  received  from 
her.  When  she  casts  off  her  physical  body — and  may 
that  day  be  far  distant! — will  that  inspiration  and 
example  be  any  less  real?  We  frequently  send  her 
thoughts  of  devoted  love  now,  and  we  are  unques- 
tionably uplifted  by  the  answer  which  we  receive; 
will  that  be  any  less  then?  Man  does  not  change 
at  death,  so  assuredly  one  whom  we  have  known  as 
so  full  of  love,  of  strength  and  of  helpfulness  in 
this  world  will  be  equally  full  of  those  characteris- 
tics even  without  a  physical  body.  For  in  these 
matters  we  are  dealing  with  the  ego,  and  the  ego 
does  not  die. 

Some  people,  while  agreeing  at  once  that  such  a 
power  of  response  would  remain  quite  unchanged 
during  astral  life,  have  yet  questioned  whether  it 
might  not  be  hindered  by  the  limitations  of  the 
heaven-world.  It  should  be  remembered  that  for 
the  developed  man — the  saint — these  limitations  no 
longer  exist.  The  ordinary  man  is  entangled  by 
them  only  because  his  mental  body  is  as  yet  imper- 
fectly evolved;  one  whose  mental  body  is  in  full 
activity  moves  as  freely  on  the  mental  plane  as  most 
of  us  do  on  the  astral.  And  in  any  case  such  limit  a- 


326  The  Christian  Festivals 

tions  are  only  those  of  the  personality.  Whatever 
powers  the  ego  possesses,  he  possesses  permanently, 
and  he  can  use  them  quite  irrespective  of  the  con- 
dition of  his  lower  vehicles.  No  doubt  every  one 
of  us  is  at  this  moment  figuring  in  the  heaven-world 
of  several  departed  friends,  although  in  physical 
consciousness  we  know  nothing  whatever  about  it. 
Each  of  these  departed  friends  makes  his  own 
thought-image  of  the  man  he  loves,  and  that  very 
love  constitutes  an  appeal  to  the  ego  of  the  loved 
one,  which  is  never  left  without  response.  The 
ego,  awakened  by  that  affectionate  touch,  at  once 
pours  himself  out  and  fills  that  thought-form;  but  it 
is  no  part  of  his  business  to  impress  that  action  of 
his  either  upon  his  own  physical  brain  (if  he  hap- 
pens to  have  one  at  the  moment)  or  upon  that  of 
the  object  of  his  affection.  The  ego  is  certainly 
capable  of  filling  a  thousand  devachanic  images  at 
once. 

The  saints  of  old  may  now  be  reborn,  and  may  be 
working  nobly  in  another  personality.  Indeed,  I 
personally  know  many  who  are  doing  so;  for 
example,  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaulx,  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  and  St.  Antony  of  Padua  are  all  of  them  at 
present  in  incarnation  and  working  energetically  for 
the  very  same  ideals  which  they  pursued  so  nobly 
under  those  historic  names.  The  present  personali- 
ties may  know  little  or  nothing  of  their  work  as 
saints,  but  the  egos  are  as  active  as  ever.  What  we 
know  to  be  true  in  these  and  other  cases  must  cer- 
tainly also  be  true  in  thousands  of  cases  of  which 
we  do  not  know.  Appeals  to  such  developed  egos 
unquestionably  do  evoke  friendly  and  helpful  re- 
sponse from  them.  We  do  not  ask  their  intercession, 


All  Saints'  Day  327 

because  such  an  idea  as  that  is  based  upon  an  un- 
worthy conception  of  God — a  suggestion  that  He 
needs  to  be  propitiated  or  appeased;  but  we  do  ask 
their  blessing  and  their  friendly  thought.  I,  as 
bishop,  give  God's  blessing  at  the  end  of  each  service, 
or  whenever  I  am  asked  to  exercise  my  office;  do 
you  suppose  that  I  shall  be  less  willing  or  less  able 
to  give  it  when  I  drop  this  physical  body?  And 
surely  what  I  can  do,  and  shall  be  glad  to  do,  these 
far  greater  people  can  do  also. 

Do  we  begin  to  see  now  what  is  meant  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  Communion  of  the  Saints?  Do  we 
not  see  now  how  truly  that  which  is  gained  by  one 
is  gained  for  all  who  are  ready  to  share  it?  Why 
should  we  deny  the  fact  of  the  Communion  of  the 
Saints,  and  why  should  we  reject  its  advantages? 
When  we  ourselves  in  turn  become  saints,  shall  we 
not  be  glad  to  help  our  fellow-men?  Then  why 
should  not  they  be  equally  willing  to  do  what  they 
can?  Let  us  accept  willingly  such  help  as  God's 
scheme  provides  for  us;  let  us  thank  God  for  all 
good  people,  and  gladly  receive  whatever  they  can 
give. 

On  All  Saints'  Day  we  celebrate  the  vast  host  of 
holy  men  who  have  not  been  sufficiently  conspicuous 
to  have  a  special  day  assigned  to  them — who  have 
lived  beautiful  and  helpful  lives  which,  though  un- 
doubtedly recognized  by  God,  did  not  attract  the 
attention  of  those  officials  of  the  Church  who  were 
charged  with  the  duty  of  recommending  men  for 
canonization.  There  must  be  many  thousands  of 
these  unknown  heroes  of  the  faith — yea,  of  all  faiths 
— who  are  just  as  worthy  of  our  gratitude  and  our 
recognition  as  those  whose  names  have  been  pre- 


328  The  Christian  Festivals 

served  through  the  ages.     So  we  devote  this  day  to 
their  memory. 

One  of  the  minor  difficulties  which  we  meet  in 
carrying  on  the  practical  work  of  the  Liberal  Catholic 
Church  is  that  of  finding  suitable  hymns — hymns 
which  we  can  sing  with  all  our  hearts,  really  mean- 
ing every  word  which  they  put  into  our  mouths. 
Our  difficulties  are  chiefly  concerned  *  with  the  un- 
worthy attitude  adopted  towards  the  Deity,  and  with 
the  mistaken  theory  of  vicarious  atonement;  but  we 
are  also  compelled  to  reject  many  beautiful  old 
hymns  because  of  the  grossly  materialistic  view 
which  they  take  of  the  future  condition  of  our 
people  in  higher  worlds. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  sing  without  a  sense  of 
unreality  such  a  verse  as: 

There  is  the  throne  of  David; 

And    there    from    care    released 
The   shout   of   them   that   triumph 

And  the  song  of  them  that  feast. 

The  implication  that  the  same  personality  will 
remain  for  ever  in  an  imagined  heaven  is  of  course 
unfounded,  because  we  know  that  in  due  time  that 
personality  will  come  to  an  end,  and  the  ego  will 
reincarnate.  But  we  shall  find  it  quite  possible  to 
sing  a  great  many  of  those  beautiful  old  hymns  when 
we  realize  that  their  expressions  are  meant  to  be 
taken  as  symbolical;  for  it  is  perfectly  true  that  the 
open  sight  of  God  and  the  unimaginable  glory  of 
His  perpetual  presence  are  ever-living  facts  for  the 
highly  developed  ego — true  most  of  all  of  course  for 
the  Monad;  but  true  of  the  ego  also  when  it  be- 
comes one  with  that  Monad  and  is  a  perfect  expres- 
sion of  it  at  its  level.  And  so,  when  we  think  of 


All  Saints'  Day  329 

the  saints  as  for  ever  in  the  presence,  we  must  under- 
stand that  they  are  not  confined  to  a  particular 
spot,  but  that  wherever  they  may  be  and  on  what- 
soever plane  they  may  be  functioning  "  their  Angels 
do  always  behold  the  face  of  our  Father  who  is  in 
heaven";  the  true  Self  on  its  own  plane  is  always 
consciously  in  the  direct  presence  of  the  Deity. 

There  is  no  special  place,  for  we  are  all  in  that 
presence  here  and  now;  it  is  only  that  we  have  not 
yet  learnt,  as  the  saint  has,  to  be  fully  conscious 
of  it.  Even  the  saint  may  have  that  consciousness 
but  rarely  and  imperfectly  in  his  physical  brain;  but 
in  his  causal  body  he  has  it  always.  Therefore  it 
is  true  to  say  of  the  holy  saints: 

Now  they  reign  in  heavenly  glory, 
Now  they  walk  in  golden  light; 
Now  they  drink  as  from  a  river 
Holy  bliss  and  infinite. 

The  feebleness  and  insufficiency  of  all  these  sym- 
bolical expressions  must  not  blind  us  to  the 
infinitely  glorious  truth  of  the  Communion  of  the 
Saints. 

Be  very  sure  that  as  the  Christ  Himself  exists,  as 
the  Hierarchy  of  His  holy  Angels  exists,  so  also 
exists  the  Great  White  Brotherhood,  the  Communion 
of  the  Saints.  Well  may  we  thank  God  at  this  great 
festival  for  the  example,  the  encouragement  and  the 
help  of  these  glorious  ones;  may  we  so  follow  them 
in  all  virtuous  and  godly  living  that  to  us  also  may 
soon  come  the  ineffable  happiness  of  being  con- 
scious channels  of  His  eternal  love. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
ALL  SOULS'  DAY 

It  seems  natural  that,  along  with  the  thankful- 
ness to  God  for  His  holy  saints  not  especially  named, 
we  should  also  think  of  those  other  dead  who  perhaps 
can  hardly  yet  claim  the  honour  of  sainthood — our 
own  dead,  those  whom  we  have  known  and  loved  and 
perhaps,  alas!  in  many  cases  have  mourned.  So  it 
comes  that  the  next  day  after  All  Saints  is  set 
apart  for  the  celebration  of  All  Souls,  of  all  the 
mighty  host  of  the  dead,  especially  with  a  view  to 
remembering  those  who  have  passed  away  during 
the  year  since  the  last  of  these  celebrations. 

It  has  become  the  custom  that  on  this  day  mem- 
bers of  congregations  should  send  in  to  the  priest- 
in-charge  the  names  of  all  those  in  whom  they  are 
personally  interested,  who  have  passed  away  during 
the  year,  in  order  that  those  names  may  be  specially 
mentioned  at 'the  Altar,  and  that  they  may  take  part 
in  the  outpouring  of  force  which  accompanies  the 
celebration  of  the  Holy  Eucharist. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  understand  exactly 
what  that  force  is,  and  exactly  what  good  it  does  to 
the  dead.  .It  is  natural,  it  is  only  human  nature, 
that  we  should  desire  to  pray  for  the  dead.  I  know 
that  a  certain  section  of  Christians  (perhaps  not  a 
large,  but  a  very  noisy  section)  consider  such 
prayer  for  the  dead  to  be  wrong.  They  have  some- 
how succeeded  in  persuading  themselves  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  progress,  and  that  when  a  man 
dies,  that  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  end  of 

330 


All  Souls'  Day  331 

him;  his  fate  is  then  settled  for  ever.  It  is  no  use 
praying  for  him;  it  is  even  supposed  to  be  wicked 
to  pray  for  him !  That  is  an  illusion  born  of  ignor- 
ance. Far  wiser  would  it  be  to  follow  the  teaching 
of  the  Church  and  of  her  Lord,  and  to  realize  that 
there  is  no  death,  but  only  a  life  of  continuous  evolu- 
tion, and  that  at  any  point  in  that  life  (whether  it 
be  the  part  of  it  which  is  spent  down  here  in  a 
physical  body  or  that  which  is  spent  in  another 
world  in  a  subtle  body)  the  man  can  be  reached  by 
thought  and  by  love  and  can  be  helped  just  as  much 
in  one  stage  of  that  eternal  progress  as  in  another. 

Before,  then,  we  can  understand  what  good  we 
can  do  to  the  dead  we  must  think  for  a  little  of 
the  state  of  the  dead.  Unfortunately  the  Chris- 
tianized part  of  the  world  has  for  some  centuries 
lain  under  the  illusion  that  nothing  can  be  certainly 
known  with  regard  to  states  after  death.  The  idea 
seems  to  be  that  the  Church  may  have  some  teach- 
ing on  that  subject;  there  may  be  some  speculations; 
there  may  be  pious  beliefs,  but  nothing  can  be 
definitely  known.  That  is  absolutely  untrue.  It  is 
possible  to  know  all  about  the  state  of  the  dead;  it 
is  possible  to  explore  and  to  investigate  that  higher 
part  of  the  world  precisely  as  countries  hitherto  un- 
known may  be  explored  on  the  physical  plane.  How 
do  we  obtain  information  about  the  South  Pole  and 
the  North  Pole,  or  about  the  interior  of  Africa?  Men 
learn  the  conditions  under  which  it  is  possible  for 
them  to  penetrate  to  these  remote  regions,  and  to 
bring  back  news  from  there.  It  is  equally  possible 
for  the  man  still  in  the  physical  body  to  penetrate 
to  these  other  higher  regions  and  come  back  and 
give  his  report. 


332  The  Christian  Festivals 

That  has  been  done  many  hundreds  of  times, 
and  we  now  know  about  this  other  world  (though  in 
reality  it  is  not  another  world,  but  only  a  part 
of  this)  as  clearly,  as  definitely  as  we  know  about 
the  less  visited  parts  of  the  earth,  and  there  is 
just  as  much  evidence  for  the  existence  of  that 
spiritual  world  as  for  any  of  the  little  known  parts 
of  the  physical  plane.  In  fact  there  is  more,  for 
only  one  or  two  people  have  penetrated  to  those  re- 
mote regions,  whereas  many  scores  of  people  have 
brought  back  recollections  from  the  world  of  those 
whom  we  foolishly  call  the  dead.  The  dead  laugh 
us  to  scorn  for  using  such  a  word;  they  maintain 
always  that  they  are  more  living  than  they  were, 
and  not  less,  now  that  they  have  got  rid  of  the 
physical  body  which  was  so  heavy  a  veil,  so  great 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  real  knowledge  of  the 
facts  of  life.  What  then  is  the  state  of  the  dead? 
There  is  a  large  literature  on  the  subject,  to  which 
I  must  refer  those  who  desire  a  detailed  answer  to 
that  question.  My  own  book,  The  Other  Side  of 
Death,  gives  much  information,  but  new  volumes  are 
constantly  being  published.  I  can  give  only  an 
outline  here. 

To  understand  even  that  outline,  we  must  first 
fix  in  our  minds  some  fundamental  ideas.  I  want  it 
quite  clearly  understood  that  in  putting  forward 
these  ideas  I  am  not  offering  them  as  mere  pious 
beliefs  or  as  probabilities,  nor  am  I  speaking  from 
hearsay.  I  am  explaining  facts  which  I  myself  per- 
sonally know  by  repeated  investigation  and  experi- 
ment. Furthermore  any  man  who  is  willing  to  take 
the  trouble  may  convince  himself  of  these  great 
central  truths  by  verifying  them  at  first  hand.  The 


All  fouls'  Dai;  333 

first  of  these  great  principles  is  the  utter  over- 
whelming certainty  of  God's  love.  Another  is  the 
absolute  continuity  of  life — the  immortality  of  man; 
and  yet  another  is  the  reasonableness  and  justice  of 
the  whole  scheme  of  evolution.  The  scriptural  axiom 
that  all  things  work  together  for  good  is  a  matter  not 
of  belief,  but  of  knowledge,  to  those  who  have  really 
studied  these  subjects. 

The  very  air  around  us  is  charged  with  so  many 
and  such  serious  misconceptions  about  death  that  it 
is  almost  impossible  for  us  to  escape  their  influence, 
unless  we  put  ourselves  especially  on  our  guard 
against  them.  One  of  the  worst  of  these  is  the  idea 
that  after  death  men  are  either  rewarded  or  punished 
for  what  they  have  done  during  physical  life.  This 
is  absolutely  not  so — not  so  in  any  sense  whatever; 
though  it  is  true  that,  because  the  life  is  continuous, 
its  later  conditions  after  death  do  depend  upon  its 
earlier  conditions  before  death,  just  in  the  same  way 
as  the  life  of  the  adult  depends  to  a  considerable 
extent  upon  the  previous  part  of  that  same  life,  as 
it  was  spent  during  childhood  and  youth.  It  might 
be  thought  that,  after  all,  this  comes  to  much  the 
same  thing;  but  that  is  not  so.  Let  us  take  an 
example  from  school-life  to  help  us  to  understand. 
If  a  boy  works  well,  he  receives  perhaps  a  medal 
or  a  prize;  if  he  works  badly,  if  he  acts  foolishly, 
he  receives  a  certain  number  of  bad  marks,  or  per- 
haps has  an  imposition  to  write  out.  These,  you 
will  observe,  are  rewards  and  punishments,  but  they 
are  in  no  sense  results.  They  have  no  actual  con- 
nection with  what  the  boy  has  done  or  not  done; 
they  express  only  the  master's  opinion  of  him.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  result  of  good  work  is  that  the 


334  &he  Christian  Festivals 

boy  knows  more,  and  is  therefore  more  capable  of 
learning;  while  the  result  of  laziness  is  ignorance, 
and  lack  of  power  to  understand  future  lessons.  The 
true  result  is  not  imposed  from  without,  but  is 
inherent,  natural,  inevitable.  So  is  it  exactly  with 
the  life  after  death.  This  death  is  a  change  through 
which  all  men  must  pass.  They  may  be  well  or  ill- 
equipped  to  profit  by  it,  according  to  the  way  in 
which  they  have  lived  this  previous  stage  which  we 
call  physical  life. 

Again,  our  tendency  is  to  regard  this  life  after 
death  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  survivors,  not 
of  the  dead  man.  Let  us  take  yet  another  example 
from  school  life.  Suppose  we  have  two  comrades  at 
a  school  strongly  attached  to  each  other,  and  sup- 
pose that  in  due  course  one  of  them  passes  on  into 
college  life.  We  can  see  at  once  how  selfish  it  would 
be  if  the  younger  boy  thought  only:  "I  have  lost 
my  friend;  he  should  have  stayed  here  at  school  for 
my  sake."  Obviously  no  boy  would  think  that;  he 
would  be  more  likely  to  think:  "He  is  continuing 
his  studies  and  development;  I  shall  presently  follow 
him,  but  he  will  certainly  not  return  to  me."  And 
if  he  were  especially  affectionate  and  helpful,  he 
might  also  think :  ' '  Can  I  help  him  in  any  way  ?  Can 
I  do  anything  that  will  be  useful  to  him  in  his  new 
surroundings?  Yes;  I  can  write  to  him,  I  can  show 
him  that  I  have  not  forgotten  him,  I  can  send  him 
my  love,  and  try  to  encourage  him  in  every  possible 
way." 

These  analogies  hold  good;  keeping  them  in  mind, 
let  us  try  to  grasp  a  few  leading  facts  about  our 
dead.  First  of  all  they  are  more  keenly  alive  than 
we.  They  are  not  far  away  in  some  unknown  imagin- 


All  Souls'  Day  335 

ary  heaven  or  hell ;  they  are  very  near  us  still.  They 
are  not  changed  suddenly  either  into  angels  or  into 
demons;  they  are  precisely  and  exactly  what  they 
were  before  they  slipped  off  the  vehicle  of  flesh,  that 
outer  coat  which  we  call  the  physical  body.  They 
are  themselves  just  as  they  were  before.  Their  love 
remains  the  same ;  nay,  it  is  greater  than  ever  before, 
because  there  is  less  to  clog  its  expression.  Their 
knowledge  or  their  ignorance  is  just  what  it  was 
before.  They  have  indeed  opportunities  of  learn- 
ing a  great  deal.  So  have  we  down  here  on  the 
physical  plane,  but  we  do  not  always  take  advan- 
tage of  our  opportunities.  It  is  just  the  same  with 
the  dead.  There  is  no  one  to  compel  them  to  learn ; 
so  some  of  them  make  little  advancement,  while 
others  acquire  a  vast  amount  of  information.  It  is 
well  for  them  to  know,  because  knowledge  is  power, 
but  not  all  the  dead  are  wise,  any  more  than  all  the 
living.  Let  it  be  quite  clear  then,  that  their  life  is 
the  same  as  our  life  except  for  the  fact  that  they 
have  no  longer  a  physical  body. 

Let  us  ask  ourselves  what  difference  it  would  make 
to  us  if  we  had  not  these  physical  bodies;  then  we 
shall  realize  exactly  what  is  the  condition  of  the 
dead.  We  can  see  that  it  would  not  be  by  any  means 
the  same  to  all  of  us.  Some  of  us  live  very  much 
in  our  physical  bodies;  some  of  us  think  chiefly 
about  the  things  which  appertain  to  those  bodies, 
such  as  comfort,  enjoyment,  pleasant  sensations, 
good  food  and  drink,  and  so  on.  Some  think  a 
great  deal  of  what  the  physical  body  brings  to 
them,  but  there  are  other  people  who  are  compara- 
tively indifferent  to  these  matters,  whose  joys  are 
all  joys  of  the  intellect  or  of  the  higher  emotions. 


336  The  Christian  Festivals 

The  great  artist  or  the  great  musician  almost  for- 
gets his  physical  body,  and  often  neglects  it,  just 
because  he  is  swept  away  out  of  it  into  the  higher 
and  subtler  vehicles. 

When  that  artist  dies  he  will  not  change.  If  the 
physical  body  has  been  little  to  him  while  he  had 
it,  it  will  mean  but  little  to  him  that  he  has  dropped 
it,  and  he  will  continue  to  live  the  same  life,  the 
life  of  art  or  of  music.  The  man  of  that  other 
type,  who  has  lived  mainly  in  relation  to  his  physical 
body  down  here,  will  find  himself  distinctly  at  a 
loss  when  he  has  dropped  it.  He  will  have  to  evoke 
for  himself  a  new  set  of  interests;  otherwise  life 
without  the  body  would  seem  to  him  dull  and  un- 
interesting. These  considerations  operate  all  the 
time;  so  when  we  think  of  someone  who  has  passed 
away,  we  have  only  to  try  to  image  to  ourselves  how 
much  difference  it  would  make  to  that  man  if  he 
had  not  his  physical  body,  and  we  shall  have  a  very 
fair  idea  of  the  condition  in  which  he  finds  himself. 

There  is  another  side  to  all  that  which  must  not 
be  forgotten.  The  physical  body  is  the  cause  of 
much  of  our  trouble  and  worry;  nearly  all  our 
work,  the  daily  work  at  which  we  have  to  slave,  has 
to  be  done  because  we  have  a  physical  body,  because 
we  must  provide  it  (and  other  physical  bodies 
round  us)  with  food  and  clothing  and  shelter.  With- 
out the  physical  body  the  man  is  utterly  free,  and 
perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  does  only 
those  things  which  he  wants  to  do.  Most  of  us 
spend  our  lives  in  doing  things  we  would  rather 
not  do  if  we  were  not  compelled.  There  is  no  such 
compulsion  for  the  dead  man.  Being  absolutely 
free,  he  may  therefore  be  gloriously  happy.  On  the 


All  Souls'  Day  337 

other  hand,  if  his  life  down  here  has  been  a  purely 
material  life,  he  may  be  somewhat  bored;  he  may 
find  the  whole  thing  uninteresting.  I  suppose  many 
an  uneducated  man  attending  a  church  service 
would  not  know  in  the  least  what  was  being  done. 
The  music  would  be  over  his  head;  if  he  could  not 
read  he  would  not  be  able  to  follow  the  liturgy;  the 
whole  thing  would  weary  him.  Yet  those  who  can 
understand  and  can  follow  know  that  there  is  a 
vast  amount  to  be  gained  out  of  such  services;  that 
they  offer  us  not  only  a  means  of  grace  for  our- 
selves, but  the  means  of  helping  others  by  the  force 
which  is  poured  out.  Yet  the  ignorant  man  would 
know  nothing  about  that;  he  would  find  the  whole 
thing  monotonous,  wearisome.  It  is  just  the  same 
with  the  dead. 

All  this  being  so,  how  can  we  help  them?  Not  by 
our  physical  actions,  because  they  have  no  longer 
physical  bodies.  What  have  they  still  in  common 
with  us?  They  have  the  subtle  body,  which  St.  Paul 
called  the  spiritual  body.  We  divide  it  as  students 
into  two  parts,  the  astral  body  and  the  mental  body. 
Those  the  dead  man  still  has,  and  we  have  them  in 
common  with  him.  If  we  are  to  help  him,  then,  it 
must  be  not  by  our  physical  acts,  but  by  the  acts 
of  these  higher  vehicles.  What  can  we  do  with  them 
that  will  help? 

One  thing  that  I  am  afraid  many  of  us  have 
done  is  to  mourn  the  dead  whom  we  have  loved. 
That  is  the  very  worst  thing  that  we  can  do  for 
the  dead  man.  I  do  not  wish  for  one  moment 
to  seem  unsympathetic,  but  if  we  are  not  afraid  to 
face  facts,  we  must  admit  that  to  mourn  is  after 
all  selfish.  What  are  we  mourning  about?  That 


338  The  Christian  Festivals 

he  whom  we  love  has  passed  into  a  higher  and  fuller 
life,  that  he  stands  more  nearly  in  the  presence  of 
God,  that  the  opportunities  opening  before  him  are 
far  grander  than  they  were  before?  Surely  that 
would  be  a  strange  thing  about  which  to  mourn! 

If  we  come  to  think  of  it,  we  are  mourning  because 
we  think  we  have  lost  him.  That  is  an  illusion;  we 
have  not  lost  him.  All  we  have  lost  is  the  power 
of  seeing  him.  He  is  still  there,  he  is  still  near  us, 
as  much  within  reach  as  he  ever  was,  but  not  with- 
in reach  of  our  physical  eyes.  The  moment  we  fall 
asleep  each  night  our  physical  eyes  are  no  longer 
of  any  use  to  us;  we  have  passed  away  from  the 
world  in  which  these  senses  operate;  we  are  using 
the  astral  body,  and  we  are  therefore  using  its 
senses;  and  to  these  senses  the  dead  man  is 
as  obvious  as  the  living  man  was  to  our  phy- 
sical sight.  We  may  be  under  the  delusion, 
while  we  are  what  we  call  awake  (but  what  he  calls 
asleep)  that  we  have  lost  the  dead  man.  When  we 
have  waked  up  to  his  world,  when  we  have  put 
aside  temporarily  the  clog  of  the  physical  body,  we 
stand  side  by  side  with  him  and  talk  to  him  exactly 
as  before.  We  may  think  down  here  that  we  have 
lost  him;  he  never  for  one  moment  thinks  that  he 
has  lost  us,  because  he  holds  that  higher  conscious- 
ness continually.  He  sees  us  fade  away  from  him 
when  we  wake  up  (or  down  as  he  would  call  it) ; 
we  fade  away  from  him  then,  but  he  knows  that  we 
shall  come  back  into  his  world  after  a  few  hours. 
It  is  just  as  when  we  see  a  man  lie  down  to  sleep 
for  a  few  hours;  we  do  not  mourn  because  he  has 
left  us;  we  know  that  he  will  presently  wake  up 
rested  and  will  be  with  us  as  before. 


Alt  Souls'  Day  339 

To  mourn  for  our  dead  friend  is  the  worst  thing 
we  can  do  for  him,  because  when  we  allow  the  mourn- 
ful feeling  to  come  over  us,  we  surround  ourselves 
with  a  cloud  of  depression.  A  clairvoyant  would  see 
it  around  us  as  a  dark  mist.  To  our  dead  friend 
that  mist  is  something  that  he  can  not  only  see, 
but  that  he  can  feel  acutely.  He  feels  the  depres- 
sion, it  reacts  upon  him,  and  it  does  him  harm,  be- 
cause it  holds  him  back  in  his  onward  progress.  We 
must  forget  ourselves;  I  know  very  well  how  hard 
it  is,  but  we  must  be  unselfish;  we  must  forget  our- 
selves and  our  presumed  loss,  and  we  must  think 
only  of  our  friend  and  of  his  great  gain.  So  when 
we  think  of  him  we  will  not  mourn.  What  can  we 
do  but  mourn?  We  can  do  something  infinitely 
nobler;  we  can  love.  Let  us  pour  out  our  love  upon 
him  whenever  we  think  of  him;  let  us  think  of  him 
as  living  still;  let  us  think  of  how  we  loved  him  in 
the  past,  and  how  we  love  him  more  and  more  now 
as  time  goes  on.  That,  too,  he  will  feel,  and  to  that 
he  will  respond.  Then  we  are  helping  our  brother, 
we  are  surrounding  him  with  sunlight  which  will  call 
out  all  the  best  that  is  in  him,  which  will  help  his 
evolution,  and  make  his  onward  path  easier.  That 
is  what  we  have  to  do. 

Shall  we  pray  for  the  dead?  Yes,  if  you  will; 
but  even  then  do  not  misunderstand.  Though  many 
have  foolishly  thought  it  wrong  to  pray  for  the 
dead,  it  is  not  in  the  least  so;  but  if  we  are  to  take 
the  words  in  their  ordinary  meaning,  it  does  perhaps 
show  a  little  ignorance.  If  by  prayer  we  mean  that 
we  are  going  to  ask  God  to  help  them  or  bless  them, 
or  remember  them,  then  we  may  as  well  save  our- 
selves the  trouble,  because  God  knows  far  more  than 


340  The  Christian  Festivals 

we  know  about  what  they  need  and  God  is  watching 
the  evolution  of  every  one  of  His  creatures  every 
moment.  We  are  within  His  Consciousness,  wher- 
ever we  are,  and  He  Who  is  Lord  of  the  living  and 
the  dead  does  not  lose  sight  of  a  person  who  draws 
nearer  to  Him.  For  that  is  what  it  is — to  cast 
aside  the  physical  body  is  to  draw  the  consciousness 
a  little  nearer  to  God,  not  further  away.  So  He 
does  not  need  our  prayers  to  remind  Him. 

What  then  is  prayer?  Prayer  is  a  strong  and 
earnest  wish;  and  that  is  a  power.  Such  a  thought 
is  a  great  reality;  it  sends  out  a  stream  of  force, 
as  is  well  known  to  all  who  have  investigated  the 
subject.  There  is  a  science  of  all  these  things,  just 
as  there  is  a  science  of  chemistry  or  of  geology,  and 
these  matters  can  be  investigated  and  tested.  All 
that  has  been  done,  not  once,  but  hundreds  of  times. 
There  is  no  reason  why  people  should  remain  igno- 
rant of  the  results  of  that  investigation.  One  would 
think  that  people  wished  to  mourn,  that  they  wished 
to  be  miserable,  so  obstinately  do  they  decline  to 
accept  the  truth  when  it  is  laid  before  them.  Some 
cannot  believe  that  it  is  the  truth.  One  would  like 
to  say  to  them:  "If  your  intuition  is  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently developed  to  guide  you  in  such  matters,  at 
least  let  your  intellect  guide  you.  There  are  books 
by  the  hundred  on  this  subject;  read  them.  If  you 
will,  and  if  you  must,  investigate  for  yourself."  I 
did  so;  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  I  devoted  a  vast 
amount  of  time  to  first-hand  inquiry  into  this  matter 
of  life  after  death,  and  because  I  did  so  I  am  able 
to  speak  quite  definitely  about  these  things  now. 
I  know  these  things  to  be  so.  He  who  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  accept  that  testimony  should  study  the  sub- 


All  Souls'  Day  341 

ject  for  himself,  and  he  will  eventually  come  to  the 
same  conviction.  A  man  is  quite  right  to  desire  a 
firm  foundation  for  faith  on  so  important  a  matter; 
it  is  of  the  very  greatest  importance,  for  whatever 
else  may  happen  to  us,  this  at  least  is  certain — that 
every  one  of  us  must  die.  Surely  we  ought  to  know 
all  we  can  about  this  state  beyond  death,  even  if  it 
were  only  for  our  own  safety  and  happiness,  and 
far  more  because  those  whom  we  love  pass  behind 
this  veil,  and  the  more  we  know  the  more  we  can 
help  them. 

We  may  be  absolutely  sure  that  every  thought  of 
ours  reaches  those  whom  we  call  the  dead,  and  that 
if  we  send  out  an  earnest  and  loving  wish  for  them, 
that  loving  wish  is  a  definite  power  which  will  reach 
them  and  affect  them.  We  do  not  need  to  evoke  the 
power  of  God.  In  God's  power  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  There  is  nothing  which  is  out- 
side of  Him.  He  has  made  laws  for  the  world,  and 
under  those  laws  every  cause  produces  an  effect. 
Our  strong  loving  thought  is  a  cause  and  will  as- 
suredly produce  its  effect.  It  must  produce  it.  We 
may  see  it  or  not;  that  does  not  matter,  but  it  must 
produce  an  effect — otherwise  the  whole  of  the  uni- 
verse has  lost  its  law-abiding  character. 

The  dead  indeed  see  us,  but  (except  during  our 
sleep)  not  exactly  as  they  used  to  do;  they  do  not 
observe  our  physical  actions,  but  they  are  thoroughly 
cognizant  of  all  our  feelings  and  of  all  such  thoughts 
as  are  in  any  way  connected  with  the  lower  personal 
self.  That  is  why  it  is  of  such  supreme  importance 
that  we  should  never  allow  ourselves  to  be  filled  with 
depression  or  despair,  because  if  we  made  that  mis- 
take, we  should  inevitably  infect  them  with  feelings 


342  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  the  same  description — the  very  last  thing  we 
should  desire  to  do  in  the  case  of  those  whom  we 
love  dearly. 

What  then  can  we  give  to  them?  What  shall  we 
wish  for  them?  The  ancient  prayer  of  the  Church 
Catholic  shows  us  this  most  beautifully  and  effec- 
tively. The  antiphon  for  the  dead  runs:  " Eternal 
rest  grant  unto  them,  0  Lord,  and  let  light  per- 
petual shine  upon  them."  This  is  not  to  be  taken 
as  meaning  that  life  in  the  astral  world  is  necessarily 
indolent — quite  the  contrary;  but  it  does  mean  that 
we  desire  for  them  perfect  rest  from  the  worries 
and  troubles  of  this  physical  world,  so  that  they 
may  lay  themselves  open  more  fully  and  completely 
to  the  influence  of  that  glorious  divine  light  which  is 
ever  shining  upon  all  His  creatures.  For  His  love 
pours  out  like  the  sunlight ;  it  is  for  us  and  for  them 
to  see  that  we  open  our  hearts  to  its  beneficent 
influence. 

The  greatest  help  of  all  that  you  can  give  to  your 
dead  is  to  remember  them  before  the  altar  of  God 
— to  send  in  their  names  to  be  laid  before  Him  at 
the  celebration  of  the  Holy  Eucharist.  I  have  ex- 
plained in  The  Science  of  the  Sacraments  that  to 
every  name  mentioned  at  the  altar  the  Directing 
Angel  assigns  a  definite  portion  of  the  mighty  out- 
pouring of  divine  force  which  descends  at  the  Con- 
secration. What  will  that  force  do  for  the  dead 
man?  That  is  at  the  discretion  of  the  messenger 
Angel  who  bears  it.  He  knows  better  than  we  what 
is  wanted,  but  it  will  undoubtedly  be  applied  to  the 
calming,  the  strengthening,  the  uplifting  of  the  man. 
Some  dead  people  may  still  be  in  a  condition  ef  un- 
consciousness. Then  if  that  unconsciousness  is  in 


All  Souls'  Dai;  343 

any  way  prejudicial,  if  it  would  be  better  for  the 
man  to  be  aroused,  the  Angel  would  use  that  power 
to  arouse  him.  If  the  Angel  sees  that  the  rest  is 
doing  him  good,  the  force  would  be  stored  up  with- 
in his  aura,  to  pour  itself  out  upon  him  in  any  way 
that  may  seem  best,  so  soon  as  he  rises  out  of  that 
condition  of  unconsciousness  and  wakes  up  into  his 
new  life. 

Whatever  may  be  the  condition  of  the  dead  man, 
the  force  we  send  will  reach  him  and  will  be  used 
for  his  good.  None  need  doubt  that,  for  we  have 
seen  thousands  of  cases,  and  we  know  of  what  we 
speak.  Any  one  may  study  the  matter,  and  verify 
our  statement.  Our  dead  are  often  very  near  to  us, 
but  the  veil  between  us  is  at  its  thinnest  on  such  an 
occasion  as  All  Souls'  Day,  for  the  very  fact  that  so 
many  people  are  simultaneously  thinking  along  the 
same  line  opens  the  channels  more  widely,  and  calls 
the  attention  of  a  vast  number  of  the  dead  who  would 
otherwise  be  pursuing  their  own  affairs. 

One  family  we  dwell  in  Him, 

One   Church,   above,   beneath, 
Though  now  divided  by  the  stream, 

The  narrow  stream,  of  death. 

We  are  all  brethren,  we  can  all  help  one  another; 
we  can  aid  them,  as  they  can  aid  us,  by  kindly 
thought  and  loving  memory.  Let  us  then  not  neglect 
the  special  opportunity  given  to  us  by  the  Church 
on  All  Souls'  Day  to  draw  closer  the  bonds  between 
the  seen  and  the  unseen. 


Part  2 

SOME  DAYS  OF  SPECIAL  INTENT 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  FAITH  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

The  Liberal  Catholic  Church  asks  no  profession 
of  faith  from  its  members.  We  who  are  its  clergy 
regard  ourselves  as  stewards  of  Christ's  Mys- 
teries, as  distributors  of  His  gifts  to  His  people; 
and  we  consider  it  our  duty  to  administer  them  to 
all  who  reverently  desire  them,  without  exacting 
some  particular  form  of  belief  as  a  qualification. 
We  think  that  what  a  man  believes  is  his  own  busi- 
ness, not  ours.  When  we  apply  to  a  doctor  for  a 
tonic,  he  does  not  enquire  to  what  political  party 
or  religious  denomination  we  belong;  we  go  to  him 
with  a  definite  object,  and  he  at  once  puts  his 
special  knowledge  and  skill  at  our  disposal. 
Christ  has  ordained  certain  sacraments  as  aids  to 
those  of  His  followers  who  feel  that  they  need  help 
in  treading  the  upward  path;  we  who  have  taken 
up  the  work  of  bishops  and  priests  are  simply  His 
almoners — part  of  His  machinery  of  distribution. 

But  the  fact  that  we  have  no  desire  to  interfere 
with  anyone's  faith  by  no  means  implies  that  we 
have  no  belief  of  our  own.  We  leave  men  abso- 
lutely free  to  put  whatever  interpretation  they 
choose  upon  creeds,  rituals  or  scriptures,  because  we 
think  that  every  man  must  use  his  own  intelligence 
in  deciding  upon  such  matters;  but  we  are  perfectly 
willing  to  tell  our  congregations  what  interpretation 
we  ourselves  accept,  and  to  share  with ,  them  such 
information  as  we  possess.  We  do  not  care  to  dis- 
pute or  to  argue,  because  discussions  on  religious 

347 


348  .  The  Christian  Festivals 

subjects  are  so  often  both  useless  and  unedifying, 
and  tend  to  degenerate  into  a  mere  acrimonious 
wrangle;  but  we  are  ready  to  expound  our  views 
to  any  one  who  desires  to  know  them. 

We  are  not  in  the  least  shirking  any  of  the 
issues  involved,  nor  are  we  taking  refuge  in  vague 
generalities;  we  have  a  clear  and  coherent  faith, 
which  we  believe  to  be  consonant  with  reason  and 
common  sense,  and  to  represent  the  original  teach- 
ing of  the  Christ.  We  hold  it  to  be  the  true 
Faith  of  our  Fathers — of  those  of  our  fathers  who 
were  able  to  grasp  the  magnificent  simplicity  of  that 
teaching;  and  we  think  it  would  be  well  for  Chris- 
tians to  get  back  to  that,  instead  of  superimposing 
upon  it  all  sorts  of  unnecessary  and  laboriously- 
invented  complications  which  have  no  basis  in  fact. 
This  faith  is  not  binding  upon  either  the  priests  or 
the  people  of  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church;  it  is 
tli at  which  I  individually  hold,  and  I  think  that  it  is 
shared  to  a  large  extent  by  my  colleagues. 

What  then  is  this  great  truth  which  I  am  to  put 
before  you?  It  is  on  the  one  hand  so.  vast,  so 
illimitable,  that  the  wisest  of  philosophers  may 
spend  his  life  in  its  study,  and  on  the  other  so 
simple  that  a  child  can  understand  it. 

Its  first  tenet  is  that  there  is  a  God,  and  that 
He  is  good.  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him  is  no  dark- 
ness at  all.  He  is  Love,  Wisdom,  Strength,  Beauty 
and  Justice.  He  is  all  the  highest  that  we  can  con- 
ceive, and  infinitely  more  than  that.  That  is  the 
root  and  foundation  of  our  system,  and  one  who 
wishes  to  comprehend  it  must  never  for  a  moment 
forget  that,  or  allow  his  faith  in  it  to  be  shaken. 


The  Faith  of  our  Fathers  349 

Secondly,  man  is  himself  divine  in  essence — a 
spark  of  God's  own  Fire.  Therefore  he  is  im- 
mortal, and  his  eventual  return  to  the  Divinity 
whence  he  came  is  in  all  cases  an  absolute  certainty, 
no  matter  how  far  from  the  upward  path  of  evolu- 
tion he  may  have  wandered.  This  path  of  evolu- 
tion is  long,  and  what  we  commonly  call  a  man's 
life  is  in  reality  only  one  day  in  his  true  life  as  a 
soul.  His  gradual  growth  takes  place  under  a  law 
of  absolute  justice — perhaps  better  stated  as  an  un- 
changeable law  of  cause  and  effect;  so  that  nothing 
whatever  can  come  to  any  man  unless  he  has 
deserved  it,  and  everything  that  happens  to  a  man 
(whether  it  be  sorrow  or  joy)  is  on  the  one  hand 
the  direct  result  of  his  own  action  in  the  past,  and 
on  the  other  an  opportunity  by  means  of  which  he 
can  deliberately  mould  his  future. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  hell;  there  is  no  wrath 
of  God  to  fear;  all  that  is  a  silly  and  blasphemous 
nightmare,  begotten  by  the  diseased  imagination  of 
ignorant  and  cruel  fanatics.  Therefore  salvation  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  is  unnecessary,  for 
there  is  nothing  for  man  to  be  saved  from  except 
his  own  error  and  his  own  ignorance.  There  is  no 
death;  there  is  an  endless  and  steadily  progressive 
life  for  all,  and  those  whom  we  call  the  righteous 
and  the  wicked  are  souls  at  different  stages  of  that 
ladder  of  life.  Savages  and  selfish  people  are  just 
young  souls — naughty  children  who,  under  the  dis- 
cipline of  life,  will  learn  better  as  they  grow  older. 
That  learning  better  and  growing  better  is  the 
object  of  the  whole  scheme,  and  the  time  occupied 
in  this  growth  may  be  lengthened  or  shortened  ac- 


350  The  Christian  Festivals 

cording  to  the  diligence  with  which  we  apply  our- 
selves to  learning  the  necessary  lessons  and 
developing  the  requisite  qualities. 

The  goal  set  before  us  is  a  high  one:  Be  ye  per- 
fect, as  your  Father  in  Hea.ven  is  perfect.  We 
are  an  incalculable  distance  from  that  goal  as  yet; 
but  our  feet  are  definitely  set  upon  the  path  which 
leads  to  it,  and  we  see  men  both  above  and  below 
us  on  every  step  of  that  path,  so  that  our  future 
way  lies  clear  before  us,  however  long  it  may  take 
us  to  tread  it.  Those  who  stand  above  us,  those 
great  Saints  and  Masters  of  the  Wisdom,  who  seem 
to  us  as  gods  in  the  splendour  of  their  knowledge 
and  power  and  love,  one  and  all  tell  us  that,  no 
long  time  ago,  they  stood  where  we  stand  now,  and 
that  if  we  will  but  persevere  as  they  persevered,  we 
shall  in  due  time  shine  even  as  they. 

Christ  is  our  Saviour,  not  in  the  sense  that  His 
physical  death  delivers  us  from  a  non-existent  hell, 
but  that  the  teaching  which  He  has  left  us  lightens 
our  darkness  and  saves  us  from  error.  He  is  our 
Pilot,  guiding  us  aright;  our  Leader  and  Example, 
after  Whom  we  should  pattern  our  lives.  We  must 
think  of  Him,  not  as  a  memory  of  two  thousand 
years  ago,  but  as  a  mighty  living  King  Who  stands 
very  near  to  everyone  of  us,  flooding  His  Church 
with  life  and  strength  through  the  channels  which 
He  has  provided.  His  sacraments  are  the  means 
of  help  which  He  has  arranged  for  us;  but  we 
must  never  forget  that  He  has  other  sheep,  who  are 
not  of  this  fold,  and  that  He  sadd  long  ago  in  an- 
other Manifestation:  "By  whatsoever  path  a  man 
approaches  Me,  upon  that  path  do  I  meet  him; 


&he  Faith  of  our  Fathers  351 

for  the  paths  by  which  men  come  from  every  side 
are  Mine." 

Sometimes  men  say  to  us:  "This  that  you  say  is 
beautiful;  but  how  do  you  know  it?"  Our  faith 
is  founded  on  common  sense,  on  observation  and  on 
reason.  It  is  the  truth  which  lies  behind  all  the 
religions  alike — the  truth  which  the  great  World- 
Teacher,  the  Christ,  has  always  taught  whenever 
He  came  down  to  help  the  world.  It  is  the  only 
theory  which  accounts  rationally  for  the  observed 
facts  of  life,  which  solves  the  many  problems  of  our 
existence,  and  enables  us  to  answer  the  various  ques- 
tions with  which  every  thinking  man  finds  himself 
faced  sooner  or  later.  Those  who  have  climbed 
higher  than  we  on  the  vast  ladder  of  evolution — 
the  great  Saints  and  Sages  of  whom  I  have  spoken 
— affirm  its  truth  and  offer  us  instruction  in  it;  but 
even  on  their  testimony  we  have  not  accepted  it 
blindly.  The  scheme  is  a  coherent  whole,  and  though 
parts  of  it  belong  to  higher  worlds  far  beyond  the 
present  reach  of  any  of  us,  other  parts  are  well 
within  our  powers  of  observation. 

Man  possesses  a  spiritual  body  as  well  as  a  phy- 
sical body,  as  St.  Paul  has  told  us;  and  it  is  quite 
possible  for  him  to  cultivate  the  powers  of  that 
spiritual  body,  and  thereby  to  extend  enormously 
the  field  of  his  observation.  There  are  some  of 
us  who  have  done  this — have  devoted  many 
years  of  their  lives  to  such  development  and 
such  study;  and  at  every  point,  as  they  un- 
folded new  faculties  within  themselves,  they 
have  found  stronger  and  stronger  confirmation  of 
the  glorious  teaching  which  has  been  given  to  them. 
So  they  have  good  reason  to  accept  the  scheme  as 


w 


352  &he  Christian  Festivals 

a  whole,  for  the  lower  part  which  they  can  see 
implies  and  requires  that  higher  part  which  is  as 
yet  beyond  them.  Their  experience  is  no  proof  to 
you,  though  their  statements  are  evidence  which  you 
would  be  foolish  to  ignore;  but  it  is  always  open  to 
you  to  do  as  they  have  done,  and  try  to  unfold 
your  own  spiritual  faculties,  that  you  may  know 
the  truth  for  yourselves  at  first  hand.  Meantime 
you  will  be  wise  to  examine  this  faith,  and  see 
whether  it  does  not  commend  itself  to  you  at  least 
as  the  most  probable  hypothesis  yet  put  forward. 

It  may  further  be  asked  how  we  can  reconcile 
our  faith  with  the  ancient  creeds  and  scriptures. 
We  believe  that  we  offer  the  only  intelligible  ex- 
planation of  the  Creed,  taking  it,  as  we  do,  as  a 
symbolical  statement  of  the  existence  and  work  of 
the  Three  Persons  of  the  Blessed  Trinity.  This  is 
a  subject  far  too  vast  to  be  treated  in  this  chapter, 
but  books  have  been  written  upon  it  to  which  those 
who  desire  further  information  may  be  referred.* 

In  the  scriptures  also  we  find  many  passages  of 
which  we  can  suggest  a  far  more  beautiful  and 
rational  interpretation  than  that  ordinarily  adopted; 
but  I  readily  admit  that,  for  my  own  part,  I  am 
entirely  out  of  harmony  with  the  attitude  of  the 
average  Christian  towards  the  bible.  He  describes 
it  as  God's  Word,  because  he  has  been  told  that 
it  is  so,  but  he  is  unable  to  produce  the  slightest 
evidence  for  so  amazing  an  assertion;  he  founds  his 
religious  beliefs  upon  certain  texts  which  he  selects 
from  it,  utterly  ignoring  other  passages  which  teach 
quite  an  opposite  doctrine.  Many  Christians  are  so 

*  See  The  Credo  of  Christendom,  by  Dr.  A.  Kingsford  ;  Exoteric  Christianity, 
by  Annie  Besant ;    The  Christian  Creed,  by  C.  W,  Leadbeater, 


The  Faith  of  our  Fathers  353 

curiously  constituted  mentally  that  they  cannot  hear 
the  truth  on  this  matter  without  becoming  furious; 
but  we  of  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  must  not  be 
afraid  to  face  facts. 

The  Old  Testament  is  clearly  a  Jewish  scripture, 
and  not  Christian,  and  the  tribal  deity  of  whom  it 
tells  us  has  no  affinity  with  the  loving  Father  as 
preached  by  the  Christ.  It  has  been  conclusively 
proved  that  most  of  its  books  were  really  not  written 
by  the  authors  to  whom  they  are  attributed;  and 
indeed,  the  same  may  be  said  of  most  of  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament  also.  No  one  who  has  deeply 
studied  those  books  can  successfully  maintain  their 
historicity;  and  those  who  understand  comparative 
mythology  will  readily  see  that  we  have  in  the 
four  gospels,  not  the  story  of  a  life,  but  an  allegory, 
a  Mystery-Drama  of  a  type  not  uncommon  in  an- 
tiquity. When  this  is  once  understood,  all  the 
incidents  fall  into  order,  and  much  that  was  pre- 
viously incredible  or  unaccountable  is  seen  to  be 
perfectly  natural.  If  these  things  are  so  (and  there 
is  no  doubt  about  it)  why  should  we  be  afraid  to 
acknowledge  them? 

It  is  open  to  any  of  our  members  to  cling  to  the 
more  physical  interpretation  if  he  prefers  it,  for 
it  matters  little  what  we  believe,  but  very  much 
what  we  do.  But  I  think  that  to  most  of  us  the 
higher  and  more  spiritual  meaning  will  appeal,  for 
in  taking  it  we  shall  find  the  glorious  old  Faith  of 
our  Fathers  welcoming  and  explaining  the  latest 
scientific  developments,  and  presenting  us  with  a 
coherent,  rational  and  most  beautiful  scheme  of 
unending  progress.  "When  once  we  see  it,  and  grasp 


354  The  Christian  Festivals 

it  so  far  as  we  can  at  our  stage,  what  enthusiasm  it 
arouses,  what  devotion  and  love  it  calls  forth!  Well 
may  we  sing:  "Faith  of  our  Fathers,  holy  Faith! 
we  will  be  true  to  thee  till  death. "  Yes,  and  be- 
yond death  to  life  again,  and  through  many  lives 
and  deaths;  for  our  faith  is  faith  in  a  God  of  Love, 
and  whithersoever  His  Will  may  send  us,  it  can 
never  be  outside  the  boundary  of  that  mighty  Love 
which  fills  eternity. 


CHAPTEE  XX 

OUR  ATTITUDE   TOWARDS  LIFE 

I  am  emphatically  of  opinion  that  a  correct  atti- 
tude towards  life  is  of  far  greater  importance  than 
any  particular  shade  of  religious  belief;  yet  it  is 
true  that  without  some  reasonable  belief  this  atti- 
tude cannot  be  attained.  A  right  attitude  is  in 
truth  the  very  first  thing  which  the  student  needs, 
yet  it  is  usually  the  last  which  he  gains;  for  it  is 
not  to  be  acquired  by  reading  about  it,  not  to  be 
learnt  like  a  lesson ;  it  is  something  into  which  a 
man  slowly  grows  as  a  result  of  his  study,  and,  still 
more,  of  his  efforts  to  put  that  study  into  practice. 

What  he  needs  to  set  before  himself  is  not  so 
much  any  one  form  of  religion,  but  rather  the  philo- 
sophy which  underlies  all  religions — the  actual 
fundamental  truth  about  God  and  man  and  the  re- 
lation between  them.  This  truth  is  in  reality  a 
philosophy,  a  religion  and  a  science ;  a  philosophy,  be- 
cause it  gives  us  an  intelligible  and  satisfactory 
theory  of  the  constitution  and  reason  of  the  uni- 
verse; a  religion,  because  it  speaks  to  us  of  God, 
of  His  relation  to  man,  and  of  His  will  with  regard 
to  our  progress;  a  science,  because  it  propounds  its 
teachings  not  as  mere  abstract  theories,  but  as  deduc- 
tions drawn  from  facts  which  have  been  repeatedly 
observed. 

We  of  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  look  through 
the  exoteric  wording  of  our  Creed  to  its  esoteric  sig- 
nification, and  we  find  that  inner  meaning  to  be 

365 


356  The  Christian  Festivals 

identical  with  the  basic  truth  of  which  I  have  written. 
So  if  we  really  understand  and  appreciate  our  reli- 
gion, I  think  it  should  affect  its  votaries  very  dif- 
ferently from  other  faiths.  Most  Western  people 
are  used  to  a  religion  which  is  absolutely  divorced 
from  practice — which  has  no  connection  with  daily 
life;  for  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  a  small 
number  of  people  belonging  to  monastic  orders,  no 
one  makes  any  attempt  really  to  carry  out  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Christ.  It  is  the  custom  to  consider  that 
any  one  who  goes  to  Church  regularly,  who  gives  a 
certain  amount  in  charity,  and  lives  on  the  whole 
a  kindly  and  helpful  life,  is  actuated  by  religious 
motives,  and  is  doing  all  that  can  be  expected  of  a 
follower  of  the  Teacher  of  Palestine. 

Yet  if  we  face  facts  instead  of  hiding  ourselves 
behind  conventions,  it  will  be  found  that  the  people 
who  do  these  things  do  them  chiefly  because  of  their 
own  kindliness  of  disposition,  and  not  with  special 
reference  to  any  religious  commands;  and,  further- 
more, they  are  by  no  means  prepared  to  follow  out 
the  real  instructions  attributed  to  the  Christ.  He  is 
supposed  to  have  said: 

Take  no  thought  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat  or  what 
ye  shall  drink,  nor  yet  for  your  body  what  ye  shall  put  on. 
Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  for  the  morrow  shall  take 
thought  for  the  things  of  itself.  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not 
judged.  Whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn 
to  him  the  other  also,  and  if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the 
law,  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  .have  thy  cloak  also. 
Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor;  and  come  and 
follow  me.  If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate  not  his  father 
and  mother  and  wife  and  children  and  brethren  and  sisters, 
he  cannot  be  my  disciple. 

Christians  will  tell  you  that  such  commands  are 
unsuited  to  the  spirit  of  the  present  day,  and  are 


Our  Attitude  Towards  Life  357 

not  intended  to  be  followed  literally;  it  has  even 
been  said  that  if  they  were  followed  literal^  they 
would  be  provocative  of  harm  rather  than  good.  Per- 
haps in  our  present  highly  artificial  condition  of 
society  that  may  be  true;  but  that  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  it  is  useless  for  men  to  pretend  to  be 
followers  of  the  Christ,  if  they  are  not  prepared  to 
put  into  practice  the  instructions  which  He  is  said 
to  have  given.  Not  even  those  who  profess  to  follow 
Him  most  closely  make  any  sort  of  attempt  to  bring 
these  instructions  down  into  daily  life;  it  would 
obviously  be  extremely  inconvenient  for  them  to 
do  so. 

I  do  not  guarantee  that  these  instructions  were 
actually  given  by  the  Christ.  If  they  were,  our  com- 
mon sense  shows  us  that  they  were  addressed  not  to 
the  world  at  large,  but  only  to  those  immediate 
disciples  who  desired  to  give  up  the  world  and 
devote  their  whole  lives  to  the  propagation  of 
Christ's  teachings  in  precisely  the  way  in  which  it 
was  then  (and  is  now)  the  custom  that  religion 
should  be  preached  in  Eastern  lands — by  men  vowed 
to  a  life  of  poverty  and  chastity.  There  is  at  all 
times  a  wide  difference  between  the  directions  given 
to  such  peripatetic  instructors  (who  were  distin- 
guished as  ''the  disciples"  or  "the  twelve")  and 
the  teaching  intended  for  the  general  public.  A 
world  in  which  everyone  lives  as  a  mendicant  friar 
is  obviously  impracticable,  and  I  am  not  for  a 
moment  suggesting  it.  My  argument  is  only  that  if 
the  orthodox  profess  to  accept  those  words  as 
divinely  inspired,  if  they  really  regard  them  as  a 
command  from  their  Leader  to  themselves,  a  certain 
sense  of  unreality  is  produced  by  the  fact  that  they 


358  The  Christian  Festivals 

do  not  make  the  slightest  effort  to  put  them    into 
practice. 

The  same  thing  is  true,  though  to  a  much  less 
extent,  of  the  other  religions.  All  the  great  faiths 
of  the  world  give  the  same  ethical  teaching  to  their 
devotees;  and  if  only  each  man  would  really  follow 
the  teaching  of  his  religion,  no  matter  what  that  re- 
ligion may  be,  we  should  have  something  like  a  mil- 
lennium at  once  and  without  further  trouble.  There 
are  fortunately  many  good  people  in  the  world — 
many  people  of  average  goodness,  that  is — but  only 
very  few  who  really  obey  to  the  full  their  own  reli- 
gious teachings.  It  may  be  asked  why  this  is  so. 
The  reason  seems  to  be  that  none  of  these  people 
really  believe  what  they  profess  to  believe.  They 
think  of  these  religious  statements  as  something  to 
which  they  are  expected  to  give  a  formal  assent  on 
Sundays,  but  not  at  all  as  actual  rules  of  life  to 
be  put  into  practice  every  day  and  all  day  long. 

In  this  it  will  be  perceived  that  religious  belief 
stands  in  an  absolutely  different  category  from  what 
may  be  called  scientific  belief,  or  belief  which  is 
based  upon  actual  knowledge.  A  man  who  has  a 
scientific  fact  before  him  knows  that  he  can  depend 
upon  that  fact,  and  therefore  he  acts  accordingly; 
if  he  has  dealt  with  a  thing  experimentally  he  knows 
exactly  what  to  do  with  it,  and  no  one  can  persuade 
him  to  act  against  the  experience  which  he  has  thus 
gained.  A  man  knows  that  fire  will  burn  him;  he 
is  always  careful  to  remember  that  fact.  He  knows 
that  water  will  always  run  downhill;  therefore  he 
never  acts  as  though  he  expected  it  to  run  up.  Yet 
a  man  may  hold  the  most  exalted  religious  senti- 
ments, and  yet  act  in  daily  life  in  direct  contradic- 


Our  Attitude  towards  Life  359 

tion  to  them.  Obviously  this  can  only  be  because 
the  sentiments  are  merely  superficial,  and  he  does 
not  really  believe  in  them  at  all. 

There  should  be  this  great  difference  between  the 
way  in  which  an  earnest  Liberal  Catholic  student 
takes  his  system  of  philosophy  and  the  way  in  which 
the  ordinary  religionist  takes  his  religion — that  the 
student  accepts  the  teachings  given  to  him  only  in 
so  far  as  he  really  believes  them,  and  therefore  he 
obviously  acts  accordingly.  If  it  be  found  that  he 
does  not  act  accordingly,  then  the  same  remorseless 
logic  applies — he  does  not  truly  believe  them  at  all. 
This  then  is  the  secret  of  our  attitude  towards  life; 
it  is  (or  it  should  be)  the  attitude  of  those  who  really 
believe  what  many  others  only  profess  to  believe — 
of  those  who  believe  it  so  thoroughly  that  in  daily 
life  they  act  as  though  it  were  true. 

One  may  take  up  a  series  of  rules,  live  accord- 
ing to  them  for  a  time,  and  then  get  tired  of  them 
and  decide  to  abandon  them;  but  that  is  possible 
only  when  they  are  not  laws  of  nature,  but  just 
arbitrary  rules  voluntarily  accepted.  So  a  man  may 
accept  a  religion,  and  presently  drop  it  again;  but 
to  accept  the  divine  wisdom  really  and  fully  is  to 
open  one's  eyes  to  a  set  of  new  truths,  to  acquire 
an  amount  of  additional  information  which  it  is 
impossible  afterwards  to  ignore.  A  man  who  has 
known  and  grasped  these  truths  can  never  unlearn 
them — can  never  fall  back  into  the  position  of  one 
who  does  not  know  them;  it  is  just  as  impossible 
as  it  would  be  for  the  man  to  grow  back  into  the 
child  again.  Therefore  one  who  has  once  attained 
the  joyous  attitude  cannot  lose  it  again;  he  may 
frequently  fail  to  live  up  to  its  standards,  but  he 


360  The  Christian  Festivals 

will  always  know  that  he  has  so  failed,  and  will  per- 
petually strive  after  a  more  perfect  success.  When 
once  we  have  seen  the  sun  we  can  never  thereafter 
deny  that  it  exists,  even  though  for  the  time  it  may 
be  veiled  from  us;  and  in  the  same  way  a  man  who 
has  once  realized  the  truth  of  God,  and  has  had  all 
his  life  expanded  and  coloured  by  it,  can  never  fall 
back  into  orthodoxy  or  materialism. 

How  is  this  attitude  to  be  obtained?  There  is  no 
way  but  to  make  our  philosophy  real  in  our  lives, 
to  become  permeated  by  the  philosophical  feeling 
and  way  of  looking  at  everything.  Take  the  ideas 
expressed  in  our  Liturgy  on  p.  292,  in  the  Act 
of  Faith,  which  we  recite  in  the  office  of  Prime: 

We  believe  that  God  is  Love,  and  Power  and  Truth  and 
Light;  that  perfect  justice  rules  the  world;  that  all  His 
sons  shall  one  day  reach  His  Feet,  however  far  they  stray. 
We  hold  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Brotherhood  of  man; 
we  know  that  we  do  serve  Him  best  when  best  we  serve  our 
brother  man.  So  shall  His  blessing  rest  on  us,  and  peace 
for  evermore. 

Merely  to  hold  these  as  a  pious  belief  would  mean 
little;  but  the  man  who  is  quite  sure  about  them, 
who  feels  deep  down  within  him  that  they  are  true, 
knows  that  by  means  of  them  he  has  an  absolutely 
secure  basis,  that  through  them  he  can  obtain  all 
good  things  if  only  he  works  steadily  to  get  them. 

See  how  many  other  facts  at  once  follow  from 
this  certainty.  If  God  is  good,  then  all  things  are 
tending  towards  an  end  which  is  good  for  all;  there- 
fore any  person  who  allows  himself  to  be  made 
miserable  by  any  events  that  happen  does  not  yet 
grasp  the  reality  of  this  truth.  A  man  who  allows 
himself  to  be  distressed  or  depressed  does  not  really 


Our  Attitude  towards  Life  361 

believe  that  God  is  good;  the  evanescent  sorrow  or 
suffering  is  more  real  to  him  than  the  great  truth 
which  lies  behind.  I  know  quite  well  that  it  is  not 
always  easy  to  see  that  all  things  are  working  to- 
gether for  good,  but  that  is  because  we  see  them 
only  partially,  and  do  not  understand  how  they  fit 
into  the  great  Plan.  "We  do  not  deny  the  existence 
of  evil;  but  we  assert  that  all  which  is  really  evil  is 
man-made,  and  arises  directly  as  the  result  of  the 
breaking  of  the  divine  law.  Therefore  the  Liberal 
Catholic  attitude  includes  perfect  calm;  for  a  man 
who  knows  that  all  must  be  well  cannot  worry. 

Though  all  is  tending  towards  a  glorious  end,  it 
is  by  no  means  yet  attained;  and  therefore,  when 
we  see  manifold  wrong  and  suffering  around  us,  we 
must  do  all  we  can  to  make  things  right — to  let  the 
underlying  right  manifest  itself;  but  if,  in  spite  of 
all  our  efforts,  things  cannot  be  brought  to  go  well, 
that  is  at  least  not  our  fault.  God  leaves  a  certain 
amount  of  free-will  to  man,  and  therefore  man  can 
misuse  it;  and  a  certain  proportion  of  men  always 
do  so.  If  things  will  not  go  as  well  as  they  should, 
there  is  sure  to  be  some  good  reason  why  for  the 
present  that  is  so,  for  we  know  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty that  they  must  finally  come  right.  Why  there- 
fore should  we  worry  about  it?  One  who  worries  is 
not  a  true  philosopher,  for  this  habit  sends  out  evil 
vibrations  which  do  much  harm  to  others,  and  no 
student  of  the  Wisdom  will  willingly  harm  any 
living  thing.  Also  he  cannot  but  feel  that  the 
man  who  worries  is  distrusting  God — showing  a  want 
of  faith  in  His  power  and  in  His  love.  His  atti- 
tude must  be  one  of  the  uttermost  confidence. 


362  &he  Christian  Festivals 

Again  it  follows  that  if  God  is  good  and  is  the 
loving  Father  of  humanity,  men  must  also  be 
brothers.  But  if  we  hold  this  truth  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  continue  to 
act  selfishly,  for  if  a  man  realizes  that  he  is  no  longer 
a  separated  being,  he  can  no  longer  be  selfish.  Some 
of  our  members  say  with  regard  to  these  matters: 

"Intellectually  we  believe  all  this  to  be  so,  because 
the  teaching  of  Divine  Wisdom  seems  to  us  to  be 
by  far  the  most  satisfactory  hypothesis  to  account 
for  all  that  we  see  in  the  world ;  but  we  have  not  the 
absolute  certainty  in  these  matters  which  can  come 
only  from  actual  knowledge;  and  so  sometimes  our 
feelings  overpower  us,  and  we  seem  to  lose  hold  for 
a  time  of  the  fundamental  truths." 

I  sympathize  entirely  with  those  who  have  these 
feelings;  I  have  acknowledged  that  some  of  us  have 
a  great  advantage,  those  who  have  had  direct  experi- 
ence, who  by  the  use  of  higher  faculties  have  seen 
overwhelming  proof  of  the  truth  of  these  great 
statements.  I  know  very  well  how  great  is  the  dif- 
ference between  our  absolute  certainty  and  even  the 
strongest  conviction  arrived  at  by  mere  reason.  But 
if  a  man  will  start  with  this  theory  as  a  hypothesis, 
he  will  find  that  all  that  happens  fits  into  it  and  is 
explained  by  it,  and  he  will  encounter  a  number  of 
corroborative  circumstances — each  is  perhaps  small 
in  itself,  but  cumulatively  they  are  of  very  great 
force — until  his  conviction  gradually  expands  and 
deepens  into  certainty. 

A  man  who  declines  to  accept  some  such  theory  as 
this  will  constantly  find  facts  which  to  him  are  in- 
explicable— facts  which  will  not  fit  into  his  scheme. 


Our  Attitude  Towards  Life  363 

If,  for  example,  a  man  denies  the  existence  of  the 
astral  world  and  of  the  life  after  death,  he  finds  him- 
self without  any  rational  explanation  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  well-authenticated  phenomena  and  of  all  sorts 
of  small  happenings  in  everyday  life.  He  has  to 
ignore  these  things  or  to  attribute  them  (against  all 
reason  and  common  sense)  to  hallucination;  while  a 
man  who  understands  the  facts  of  the  case  can  fit 
them  in  quite  easily  into  the  outline  already  in  his 
mind.  He  may  not  understand  in  every  detail  how 
the  results  are  produced,  but  he  sees  at  once  that 
they  are  in  agreement  with  what  he  already  knows, 
and  they  are  not  in  any  way  unnatural  to  him. 

Thus,  without  being  himself  clairvoyant,  he  may 
accumulate  a  great  deal  of  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  higher  planes.  Indeed,  his  position  in  compari- 
son with  that  of  the  sceptic  is  like  that  of  the  first 
believers  in  the  heliocentric  theory  as  opposed  to 
those  who  believed  in  the  flat  and  stationary  earth. 
Those  who  held  to  the  latter  idea  became  more  and 
more  confused  as  they  acquired  additional  informa- 
tion; the  more  they  learned  of  the  movements  of 
the  different  planets  and  stars,  the  more  hopeless 
the  confusion  became;  whereas  when  once  the  fun- 
damental fact  of  the  earth's  movements  had  been 
realized,  everything  straightway  fell  into  its  place 
arid  was  seen  to  be  part  of  a  coherent  and  compre- 
hensible whole.  Every  additional  fragment  of 
evidence  is  not  merely  an  addition  to  the  strength 
of  the  proof  as  a  whole,  but  actually  a  multiplication 
of  it. 

All  the  theories  of  man  about  the  Deity  may  be 
classified  under  three  heads:  either  He  is  indifferent 
to  us;  or  He  is  actively  hostile  to  us,  and  needs  to 


364  &he  Christian  Festivals 

be  propitiated;  or  He  is  full  of  love  and  goodwill 
towards  us.  If  God  be  indifferent  to  us,  if  He  has 
brought  us  into  existence  for  a  mere  whim,  or  if 
we  have  grown  fortuitously  as  the  result  of  the 
blind  working  of  natural  laws,  it  is  to  us  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  as  though  there  were  no  God 
at  all. 

This  belief  has  obviously  no  coherent  theory  of  the 
universe  to  offer  us — no  plan,  and  consequently  no 
hope  of  any  final  end  which  shall  justify  or  account 
for  our  existence.  There  have  been  many  in  the  past 
who  have  held  this  comfortless  belief,  and  it  is  even 
possible  that  there  are  some  who  hold  it  now.  It 
seems  inconceivable  that  anyone  could  desire  to  hold 
it,  but  some  may  imagine  themselves  forced  to  do 
so  by  what  they  consider  the  lack  of  sufficient  evi- 
dence to  the  contrary.  The  philosophical  student 
knows  that  such  evidence  to  the  contrary  exists,  and 
exists  in  overwhelming  quantity;  but  as  much  of  it 
depends  upon  clairvoyant  investigation,  the  man 
who  wishes  to  examine  it  must  satisfy  himself  as  to 
the  possibility  of  clairvoyance. 

The  second  theory — that  God  is  capricious  or  hos- 
tile to  man — has  been  very  widely  held.  Man  images 
God  as  the  highest  that  he  can  conceive;  but  the 
highest  that  he  can  conceive  is  often  only  a  glorified 
and  intensified  edition  of  himself.  Consequently 
when  nations  are  in  the  rough  and  boisterous  and 
fighting  stage  which  accompanies  the  earlier  steps 
of  their  development,  they  usually  provide  them- 
selves with  a  god  who  is  a  man  of  war  and  will  fight 
for  them  against  their  enemies.  Such  a  god  is  com- 
monly regarded  as  capable  of  anger  and  of  great 
cruelty,  and  therefore  he  needs  propitiation  to  pre- 


Our  Attitude  Towards  Life  365 

vent  him  from  letting  his  angry  passions  loose  upon 
his  unfortunate  devotees. 

All  religions  which  offer  any  type  of  sacrifice  to 
God  belong  to  this  category,  because  in  all  cases 
the  idea  underlying  the  sacrifice  is  either  that  by 
this  offering  the  deity  may  be  pleased  and  induced 
to  do  in  return  for  it  some  kindness  which  he  would 
not  otherwise  have  done,  or  else  that  by  this  offer- 
ing he  is  bought  off  from  doing  some  evil  which 
he  otherwise  would  do.  The  Jewish  Yahweh  was 
obviously  a  deity  of  this  type,  and  the  pernicious 
influence  of  this  idea  of  propitiation  has  been  allowed 
to  extend  itself  into  Christianity,  and  is  responsible 
for  the  amazing  and  indeed  blasphemous  distortion 
of  the  beautiful  and  inspiring  story  of  the  descent 
of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  into 
matter. 

Thus  those  who  do  not  understand  the  real  mean- 
ing of  their  Creed  are  driven  to  the  untenable  posi- 
tion that  God  in  one  form  sacrifices  Himself  to  pro- 
pitiate God  in  another  form,  in  order  to  prevent 
Him  from  the  perpetration  of  atrocious  cruelties 
upon  His  creatures;  and  even  this  tremendous  and 
incredible  sacrifice  is  represented  to  be  so  far  from 
effective  that  only  an  inappreciable  fraction  of 
humanity  is  after  all  rescued  by  it.  The  utter  im- 
possibility of  so  monstrous  a  theory  escapes  the 
notice  of  those  who  think  they  believe  it;  but  that 
is  only  because  they  have  never  ventured  really  to 
face  it,  but  take  its  statement  for  granted  as  part 
of  a  theological  system  which  is  supposed-  to  lie 
absolutely  outside  of  the  region  of  ordinary  reason 
and  common  sense.  This  second  form  of  belief 
usually  involves  a  theory  of  the  universe  as  exist- 
ing for  a  certain  end,  but  as  constructed  in  a  man- 


366  The  Christian  Festivals 

ner  so  faulty  that  it  fails  almost  entirely  in  its 
original  intention,  and  secures  the  lasting  happiness 
of  only  a  small  proportion  of  its  inhabitants — and 
even  that  on  the  remarkable  assumption  that  they 
are  somehow  enabled  to  forget  the  appalling  fate 
which  overtakes  the  great  mass  of  humanity. 

The  third  theory — that  God  is  love,  and  that  the 
whole  of  His  mighty  universe  is  moving  steadily  on- 
ward to  an  appointed  end  of  conscious  unity  with 
Him — is  the  only  one  which  can  be  accepted  by  the 
philosophical  student.  The  boundless  love  of  the 
Deity  is  the  very  foundation  of  Liberal  Catholic  be- 
lief. No  sacrifices,  no  offerings,  no  prayers,  can  be 
necessary  to  the  God  who  is  the  loving  Father  of  all 
His  people,  and  is  already  doing  for  them  far  more 
than  they  could  ask,  far  more  than  they  can  con- 
ceive. All  that  we  can  offer  Him  in  return  is  our 
love  and  our  service;  and  our  love  is  the  very  mani- 
festation of  God  within  us,  so  that  the  only  action 
on  our  part  which  can  be  thought  of  as  pleasing  to 
Him  is  that  which  more  and  more  allows  the  indwel- 
ling God  to  manifest  Himself  through  us.  This 
seems  to  me  the  greatest  of  all  the  truths — the  truth 
upon  which  all  else  depends. 

When  a  man  is  thoroughly  permeated  with  the 
utter  certainty  of  eternal  love  and  absolute  justice, 
from  that,  as  the  basic  fact,  he  will  find  all  the  other 
facts  in  nature  gradually  coming  into  line  and  tak- 
ing their  proper  place.  Trouble  of  some  sort  comes 
to  every  man;  and  because  of  that,  man  is  sometimes 
tempted  to  believe  that  all  cannot  be  well — that  there 
must  be  a  failure  somewhere  and  somehow  in  the 
working  of  the  divine  scheme.  Such  an  error  is 
natural;  but  it  is  an  error  nevertheless,  and  the  man 
who  makes  it  is  in  the  position  of  the  African  chief 


Our  Attitude  Towards  Life  367 

who  refused  to  believe  that  water  could  ever  become 
solid,  because  he  had  never  seen  an  example  of  that 
phenomenon. 

To  the  average  student  this  certainty  comes  only 
as  the  result  of  the  intellectual  conviction  that  it 
must  be  so — that  the  evidence  in  its  favour  is 
stronger  than  that  which  is  offered  against  it.  The 
clairvoyant  has  the  enormous  advantage  of  being 
able  to  see  on  higher  planes  much  more  definite  evi- 
dence of  the  trend  of  the  great  forces  which  are 
playing  through  and  round  humanity.  Seeing  phy- 
sical life  only,  a  man  obtains  a  distorted  view,  and 
if  he  is  by  nature  hypochondriacal  he  may  contrive 
to  take  and  to  maintain  a  pessimistic  view  of  life; 
but  one  who  can  see  beyond  the  physical  plane  is 
thereby  enabled  to  estimate  things  more  nearly  at 
their  real  value,  to  get  them  into  perspective,  and  to 
see  their  relative  proportions.  So  in  the  strength  of 
that  higher  knowledge  he  is  able  to  say  with  cer- 
tainty that  he  knows  that  the  great  forces  which 
surround  us  are  tending  finally  to  good.  Much  which 
is  temporarily  evil  arises,  and  must  necessarily  arise, 
from  the  giving  of  even  a  small  amount  of  free  will 
to  man.  But  all  evil  is  only  partial  and  temporary, 
and  its  effects  are  all  swept  along  in  the  mighty 
stream  of  evolution,  just  as  the  little  eddies  and 
whirlpools  on  the  surface  of  a  roaring  torrent  are 
nevertheless  swept  onward  in  its  course  towards  the 
sea. 

When  a  man  is  thoroughly  convinced  that  this  is 
the  universal  law,  he  is  able  to  estimate  at  their 
true  value  the  small  apparent  divergences  from  it 
with  which  he  meets  in  daily  life.  His  own  troubles 
and  difficulties  loom  large  to  him  because  of  their 


368  The  Christian  Festivals 

proximity,  but  his  knowledge  of  the  Divine  Wisdom 
enables  him  to  rise  above  them  and  to  look  down 
upon  them  from  the  higher  standpoint,  so  that  he 
can  see  their  true  proportion.  He  in  no  way  fails 
to  sympathize  with  an  individual  who  is  temporarily 
suffering;  yet  he  cannot  be  overwhelmed  by  sad- 
ness, because  he  sees  beyond  the  suffering  to  its  re- 
sult, beyond  the  sorrow  to  the  goal  of  eternal  joy. 
All  troubles  are  to  him  necessarily  evanescent,  like 
the  discomforts  of  a  journey.  They  are  no  doubt 
real  and  annoying  while  they  last,  but  the  man 
faces  them  precisely  because  he  desires  to  reach  the 
end  of  the  journey.  For  the  true  philosopher  there- 
fore depression  is  an  impossibility;  he  regards  it 
not  only  as  a  weakness,  but  as  a  crime,  because  (as 
we  said  before)  he  knows  that  it  infects  those  around 
him,  and  holds  them  back  in  their  progress  on  the 
upward  path. 

He  knows  it  to  be  both  inutile  and  foolish  to 
grumble  at  what  happens  to  him,  however  unpleasant 
it  may  be.  It  could  not  happen  to  him  unless  he 
had  deserved  it,  and  consequently  he  regards  it  as 
the  paying  of  a  debt  which  must  be  cleared  out  of 
the  way  before  further  progress  can  be  made.  He 
does  not  grumble  at  the  deficiencies  and  weaknesses 
which  he  finds  within  himself,  because  he  knows 
that  it  is  he  and  none  other  who  has  made  himself 
what  he  is,  and  that  it  is  he  and  none  other  who  can 
change  himself  to  what  he  would  be.  He  believes  that 
he  has  all  eternity  in  front  of  him  in  which  to  con- 
quer his  difficulties,  and  therefore  he  knows  with 
absolute  certainty  that  these  difficulties  will  be  con- 
quered, however  insurmountable  they  may  appear 
from  his  present  point  of  view. 


Our  Attitude  Towards  Life  369 

He  knows  that  any  evil  which  he  has  done  in  the 
past  must  after  all  have  been  finite  in  its  extent, 
and  consequently  its  results  must  be  finite  also; 
whereas  he  himself  is  a  living  force  of  infinite  pos- 
sibility, able  to  draw  without  stint  from  the  Divinity 
of  which  he  is  an  expression.  His  attitude  is  then 
one  of  perfect  trust  and  of  perfect  philosophy,  and 
the  object  of  his  life  is  to  become  to  the  fullest  extent 
of  his  capacity  a  co-worker  with  God  Himself.  In 
playing  that  part  he  cannot  but  be  a  happy  man, 
because  he  feels  himself  at  one  with  the  Deity,  Who 
is  happiness.  If  he  can  but  realize  that  all  nature 
is  the  garment  of  God,  he  will  be  able  to  see  in  it 
His  hidden  beauty  and  glory. 

All  this  may  be  his,  but  only  on  condition  that  he 
really  lives  his  creed,  that  he  allows  it  to  permeate 
him  and  to  inspire  him.  We  have  been  told  in 
ancient  scripture  that  he  who  wishes  to  tread  the 
Path  must  become  that  Path  himself,  which  means 
that  the  treading  of  it  must  become  so  absolutely 
natural  to  him  that  he  can  do  no  other.  A  man  may 
be  intellectually  convinced  of  the  truth  of  our 
teaching  although  he  knows  that  in  many  ways  he 
falls  short  of  its  full  realization;  but  the  man  who 
is  able  to  live  it  obtains  far  more  than  the  intel- 
lectual conviction;  by  his  own  experience  there 
grows  up  within  him  a  living  certainty  and  know- 
ledge of  its  truth  which  can  never  be  shaken.  They 
that  do  the  will  of  the  Father  which  is  in  Heaven, 
they  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  true; 
only  by  living  the  life  of  the  child  of  God  is  the 
true  Wisdom  of  God  attained,  and  only  through  that 
Wisdom  can  we  reach  and  maintain  the  truly  divine 
attitude  of  limitless  love  to  all  beings. 


CHAPTEE  XXI 

THE  GREATEST  OF  THESE 

Christ  is  the  Lord  of  Love,  and  if  we  are  in 
earnest  in  our  wish  to  follow  Him,  we  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  men  of  the  outer  world  by  this 
characteristic  above  all  others.  It  was  said  of  the 
early  members  of  the  Church :  ' '  See  how  these  Chris- 
tians love  one  another";  can  this  truly  be  said  of  us 
to-day?  I  think  we  must  try  to  understand  what 
love  really  is;  we  all  talk  about  it  freely  enough,  but 
there  are  few  outside  the  Inner  Circle  of  those  who 
stand  close  round  our  Masters  who  can  be  said  really 
to  know  what  it  is.  What  passes  in  the  outer  world 
by  that  name  is  usually  only  a  faint  and  sullied  re- 
flection of  love.  It  is  often  grasping  and  selfish;  it 
is  intermingled  with  all  kinds  of  desires  and  other 
emotions,  such  as  jealousy  and  pride;  it  is  not  the 
genuine  feeling  at  all;  we  who  know  that  God  is 
Love  ought  to  be  capable  of  something  higher  than 
that. 

We  must  not  make  the  mistake,  as  beginners  not 
infrequently  do,  of  thinking  that  those  who  try  to 
follow  the  Path  of  Holiness  should  have  no  emo- 
tions ;  assuredly  we  must  have  emotions,  but  we  must 
be  careful  that  they  are  only  those  that  we  definitely 
choose  to  have.  WTe  must  not  let  o*r  astral  bodies 
formulate  emotions  for  themselves  and  then  run 
away  with  us,  and  sweep  us  off  our  feet  with  them; 
that  is  all  wrong.  But  to  say  we  should  have  no 
emotions  would  be  to  make  of  us  monsters  instead 
of  men:  to  make,  perhaps,  intellectual  giants,  but 

370 


Greatest  of  These  371 

beings  utterly  incapable  of  sympathy,  and  therefore 
useless  for  the  Masters'  work. 

If  we  look  at  the  illustrations  in  a  book  which  I 
published  many  years  ago,  Man  Visible  and  Invisible, 
we  shall  see  that  the  astral  body  of  the  savage,  and 
even  that  of  the  ordinary  man,  are  examples  of  what 
the  astral  body  ought  not  to  be;  they  show  it  formu- 
lating its  own  emotions  (some  of  them  distinctly 
bad),  sweeping  away  the  ego  from  his  path,  and 
acting  entirely  without  his  control.  If  we  examine 
the  drawing  of  the  astral  body  of  the  developed  man 
we  see  that  it  is  an  exact  mirror  of  his  mental  body, 
which  means  that  he  has  emotions,  profound  and 
beautiful  emotions,  but  he  has  those  which  he  allows 
himself  to  have,  and  no  others.  The  astral  body 
has  become  a  reflection  of  the  mental;  it  is  a  ser- 
vant instead  of  a  master;  and  the  astral  body,  like 
fire  and  some  other  things,  is  a  very  good  servant  but 
a  very  bad  master. 

The  moment  we  allow  it  to  take  control  it  spoils 
everything;  but  it  is  an  absolutely  necessary  vehicle 
for  our  work,  and  when  under  perfect  control,  it 
can  enable  us  to  reach  much  which  without  it  we 
could  not  reach.  The  astral  body  corresponds  to  and 
is  a  mirror  of  the  buddhic  vehicle;  and  as  the 
buddhic  vehicle  is  not  yet  developed  in  most  of  us, 
it  is  only  through  the  astral  body  that  we  can  obtain 
touch  with  the  buddhic  plane — not  through  the  mind. 
Through  the  mind  we  can  know  a  little  of  the  ego, 
the  soul ;  by  meditation  the  lower  mind  can  come  into 
contact  with  the  higher  mind;  but  it  is  through  the 
nobler  emotions  only  that  we  can  touch  that  still 
higher  vehicle.  Therefore  we  need  to  feel  emotions, 
but  we  must  strictly  curb  those  emotions;  we  must 


372  The  Christian  Festivals 

see  that  they  are  of  the  right  kind,  and  that  only 
those  which  are  helpful  are  allowed  to  play  through 
us. 

So  is  it  with  love,  the  key-note  of  which  is,  as 
Christ  absolutely  insisted,  that  we  must  forget  our- 
selves in  that  which  we  love.  That  ought  not  to  be 
difficult;  but  apparently  it  is.  There  are  many  who 
seem  unable  to  do  it;  and  yet,  if  the  feeling  be  only 
strong  enough,  the  result  must  follow.  This  ques- 
tion is  one  of  those  with  which  every  one  of  us  will 
be  faced  in  the  future.  When  the  Lord  conies,  His 
gospel  will  be  a  gospel  of  love.  lie  Himself  is 
known  as  the  Lord  of  Love,  of  Compassion,  of  Kind- 
liness; that  that  is  one  of  the  features  which  must 
be  most  prominent  in  His  teaching  is  stated  in  Mr. 
Jinarajadasa's  wonderful  little  book,  What  we  shall 
Teach;  we  find  it  laid  down  there  very  clearly;  and 
we  should  remember  that  Mr.  Jinarajadasa  is  one 
of  those  who  is  on  the  special  line  of  the  World- 
Teacher,  and  therefore  closely  linked  with  Him.  He 
says  there: 

There  is  a  power  that  makes  for  strength,  and  it  is  love; 
in  many  forms  it  grows  in  men's  hearts,  but  with  each 
appearance  it  brings  strength — strength  to  transmute  cruelty 
into  sacrifice,  lust  into  worship,  pride  into  devotion;  this  love 
brings.  This  is  the  first  truth  that  you  and  I  will  teach,  in 
His  name. 

There  is  a  power  that  makes  all  things  new,  and  it  is 
Beauty  that  is  Joy.  Love,  and  you  shall  see  the  Beauti- 
ful; worship,  and  you  shall  be  one  with  Him;  serve,  and 
you  shall  be  His  Anointed  for  the  salvation  of  your  fellow- 
men.  This  is  the  second  truth  that  you  and  I  will  teach, 
in  His  name. 

There  is  a  power  that  unifies  all,  and  it  is  sacrifice. 
Through  action  that  is  sacrifice  comes  life  to  love  that  is 
strength  and  to  beauty  that  is  joy.  This  is  the 'way  for  all 


Greatest  of  These  373 

to  tread,  the  path  the  One  Lover  has  made  for  His  Beloved. 
This  is  the  third  truth  that  you  and  I  will  teach,  in  His 
name. 

Now  these  words  are  not  only  beautiful  but  they 
are  profoundly  true;  that  is  precisely  what  we  must 
do,  if  we  are  to  take  part  in  the  future  which  is 
opening  before  us.  All  the  modes  of  thought,  all 
the  methods,  and  all  the  ideas  that  come  naturally 
to  us,  are  of  the  past;  we  must  learn  to  live  in  and 
for  the  future;  the  future  which  the  Lord  will  make 
when  He  shall  come;  and  this  Love  is  the  key-note 
of  that  future.  It  is  no  new  teaching;  He  gave  it 
when  He  was  on  earth  before;  He  gave  it  as  Shri 
Krishna;  He  gave  it  as  the  Christ;  and  His  disciple 
St.  John,  following  in  His  steps,  preached  this  also. 

St.  Paul  has  given  what  is  perhaps  one  of  the 
best  definitions  of  Love  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of 
the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  We  can  do  no 
better  than  take  that  chapter  and  read  it,  and  see 
how  far  our  conception  of  Love  agrees  with  that  of 
that  great  Apostle  and  Initiate.  "Love,"  he  said, 
"suffereth  long  and  is  kind."  That  is  to  say,  it 
bears  all  for  the  sake  of  him  whom  it  loves;  it  never 
thinks  of  anything  that  can  be  done  for  the  loved 
one  as  a  trouble  or  a  worry  or  a  difficulty.  "It 
suffereth  long."  He  says  in  another  place:  "It 
beareth  all  things;  believeth  all  things;  hopeth 
all  things."  So  from  the  loved  one,  it  bears 
all,  whatever  may  come.  Of  him  it  believes 
the  noblest  and  the  best  always,  and  hopes 
for  the  grandest  and  most  magnificent.  So  it  devotes 
itself  wholly  and  solely  to  the  object  of  its  love;  it 
never  thinks  of  itself  at  all.  "Love  seeketh  not  her 
own " ;  it  does  not  even  ask  for  that  which  well  might 


374  The  Christian  Festivals 

be  expected;  for  it  thinks  nothing  of  itself,  but  only 
of  the  beloved. 

That  is  a  beautiful  conception — all  must  see  that; 
but  I  suppose  many  people  in  the  outer  world  would 
think  of  it  as  an  impossibility.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
counsel  of  perfection,  it  is  Utopian ;  the  outside  world 
would  say  that  there  is  no  one  who  feels  like  that. 
Yet  wait,  you  who  are  striving  upwards,  wait  till 
you  enter  into  the  Inner  Arcanum,  and  you  will  find 
that  there  are  those  who  feel  just  like  that.  The  love 
of  our  Masters  is  love  such  as  that ;  and  when  in  the 
far  future  we  are  able  to  see  the  consciousness  of  the 
great  Lord  of  Love  Himself,  we  shall  find  that  He 
loves  His  world  in  exactly  that  way,  caring 
nothing  what  it  thinks  of  Him,  thinking  only  of 
what  can  be  done  for  it.  It  is  wonderful,  it  is 
glorious,  but  it  is  true;  this  attitude  can  be  reached 
by  men,  and  it  has  been  reached  by  men;  therefore 
we  can  reach  it,  every  one  of  us.  I  do  not  say  that 
we  can  do  it  at  once — that  we  can  cast  aside  all  our 
old  habits  in  a  moment;  we  can  cast  them  off,  but 
they  will  come  back  again  and  again,  because  we  have 
established  a  sort  of  evil  momentum ;  we  have  created 
ruts  in  which  our  thought  moves,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  pull  it  away  out  of  those  in  a  moment.  It  is  not 
easy  to  change  ourselves,  because  our  habits  in  these 
matters  are  not  those  of  this  life  only;  they  have 
existed  for  thousands  of  years,  and  a  habit  we  have 
been  forming  for  twenty  thousand  years  takes  some 
changing;  but  it  must  be  done,  and  therefore  we  had 
better  set  about  it  at  once;  the  sooner  we  begin  the 
better. 

When  Love  is  strong  enough,  we  may  see  that  atti- 
tude even  now.  We  have  all  heard  of  the  most  won- 


&he  Greatest  of  These  375 

derful  self-sacrificing  actions  performed  by  those 
who  truly  love — by  a  mother  for  her  child,  by  a 
husband  for  a  wife,  or  a  wife  for  a  husband.  There 
are  wonderful  instances  of  splendid  heroism  that 
seem  superhuman;  but,  after  all,  those  who  do  these 
things  are  men  like  ourselves,  and  if  they  can  do 
them,  surely  we  can  do  them  too.  It  is  only  a 
matter  of  shaking  oneself  free  from  the  old  fetters 
and  trying  to  understand,  and  that  is  not  so  difficult 
after  all.  All  that  St.  Paul  says — beautiful  as  it 
is,  glorious  as  it  is,  well  worth  reading  as  it  is — 
every  word  of  it  is  already  in  the  heart  of  any 
person  who  really  deeply  loves.  He  forgets,  he 
must  forget,  himself;  he  can  think  only  of  the 
object  of  his  love;  and  that  being  so  all  the  rest 
follows.  All  these  other  qualifications  which  St. 
Paul  mentions  come,  if  the  love  be  true  and  pure. 
It  is  useless  to  say  that  at  our  present  level  we  can- 
not have  such  a  thing;  we  can  and  we  must. 

Of  all  the  qualifications  for  Initiation  this  is  the 
greatest,  for  it  includes  all  the  rest.  St.  Paul  ends 
his  chapter,  "And  now  abideth  Faith,  Hope,  Love, 
these  three;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  Love,"  and 
this  is  the  new  gospel.  The  old  one — I  mean  that  of 
the  previous  World-Teacher — was  the  gospel  of 
Wisdom;  if  ignorance  could  be  dispelled,  He  said, 
if  man  could  only  know  and  understand,  then  evil 
would  be  gone.  That  is  perfectly,  absolutely  true; 
but  this  presentation  is  also  true,  and  this  is  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  present  day — that  when  men  live 
as  brothers,  when  they  put  aside  their  lack  of  love, 
their  suspicion  and  their  lack  of  comprehension, 
their  woodenness  and  their  stupidity,  the  whole  world 
will  be  different.  When  men  have  learned  to  trust 


376  The  Christian  Festivals 

one  another,  to  live  together  by  common-sense 
arrangement,  instead  of  every  one  having  to  be  re- 
stricted by  law  from  doing  this  and  doing  that,  the 
one  great  Law  of  Love  will  be  restriction  enough  for 
every  man. 

It  will  be  a  long  time  before  all  the  world  can 
come  to  that  stage;  but  it  will  be  longer  still  if 
somebody  does  not  begin,  and  we  are  precisely  the 
very  people  whose  business  it  is  to  be  setting  that 
example,  for  we  are  awaiting  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  of  Love.  If  we  are  to  be  His  helpers,  His 
disciples,  perhaps  even  His  apostles  when  He  comes, 
we  must  be  studying  His  method  already — what  we 
know  of  it — and  this  at  least  we  know  of  it,  that 
Love  will  be  its  central  feature.  We  can  accustom 
ourselves  to  that  central  feature,  we  can  begin  to 
live  the  life  which  He  will  expect  us  to  live, 
and  most  certainly  the  more  we  live  it  now, 
the  more  we  shall  prepare  ourselves  to  be  His 
helpers  when  He  comes.  If  we  can  permeate 
ourselves  with  His  spirit  beforehand,  that  will  be 
an  enormous  advantage  to  us  in  acting  as  the 
channels  of  His  grace  and  His  power  when  He  comes. 
Until  then  the  most  we  can  do  is  to  practise  all 
these  virtues,  and  to  try  in  that  way  to  make  our- 
selves ready. 

We  must  put  away  all  unworthy  ideas;  it  is  an 
insult  to  the  glorious  name  of  Love  to  use  it  for  the 
sort  of  emotion  with  which  many  of  us  are  familiar; 
it  is  not  the  right  word  at  all.  The  real  thing  is 
spiritual,  truly,  beyond  the  comprehension  of  many, 
but  glorious  beyond  all  that  words  can  tell.  Let  us 
reach,  if  we  can,  the  buddhic  consciousness;  let  us 
try  to  touch  it  even  for  a  moment;  we  shall  have 


Greatest  of  These  377 

to  experience  it  when  we  reach  the  period  of  Initia- 
tion. Happy  for  us  if  we  can  attain  it  before,  and 
so  save  on  that  mighty  occasion  some  trouble  to 
those  who  are  in  charge. 

Let  us  enter,  if  we  can,  into  some  stage  of  this 
higher  consciousness;  it  will  be  a  revelation  to  us, 
something  we  can  never  forget.  The  world  will 
never  again  be  the  same  to  us  when  once  we  have 
seen  that.  Such  experience  is  not  for  all  of  us 
yetK  because  it  means  a  stupendous  effort — an  effort 
for  which  few  are  yet  ready.  It  has  been  made  by 
some,  but  only  at  considerable  risk  and  with  con- 
siderable strain.  I  have  seen  a  strong  man  faint  in 
the  making  of  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  attain  that 
union;  yet  there  are  others  to  whom  it  comes  natu- 
rally and  easily.  It  will  come  to  all  of  us  at  one 
stage  or  other — most  likely  first  in  our  meditation 
some  time.  It  may  be  by  a  definite  effort,  it  may 
be  simply  in  the  course  of  the  evolution  of  our 
power  of  meditation  that  it  will  come  to  us,  but  come 
it  will,  and  then  we  shall  know. 

Until  then  we  must  simply  imagine  to  ourselves 
this  higher  love;  but  let  us  get  as  near  to  it  as  we 
can;  let  us  determine,  at  least,  that  not  even  the 
tiniest  tainting  speck  of  selfishness  shall  remain  in 
our  emotion,  that  we  will  live  only  for  the  object  of 
our  love.  Let  us  pour  out  our  love  upon  our 
Masters;  there  indeed  there  can  be  no  selfishness,  for 
we  cannot  be  wondering  what  They  feel  for  us,  or 
what  They  can  do  for  us;  we  know  that  beforehand. 
We  know  that  when  the  pupil  is  ready  the  Master  is 
ready  also,  and  that  Their  love  is  as  wide  as  the 
sea.  The  only  limitations  and  difficulties  are  those 


378  The  Christian  Festivals 

which  we  make  ourselves;  there  is  no  difficulty  on 
Their  side,  no  limitation  to  Their  power  of  affection. 

St.  Paul  says:  "Love  envieth  not/'  It  is  rare  to 
find  that  sort  of  love,  the  love  which  envieth  not, 
which  vaunteth  not  itself,  which  is  not  puffed  up ; 
those  are  among  his  definitions.  However  splendid 
may  be  the  achievement  of  one  whom  we  love,  we 
feel  only  the  purest  pleasure  in  it,  never  the  least 
touch  of  envy;  and  if  in  some  way  we  can  do  some- 
thing which  the  loved  one  cannot,  we  do  not  boast 
about  it,  we  are  not  puffed  up  about  it;  we  think 
only  of  his  feelings,  and  never  of  ours.  It  is  all  so 
simple  if  we  always  keep  in  mind  the  key-note  of 
unselfishness;  but  failing  that  key-note  everything 
goes  wrong;  that  is  inevitable. 

''It  is  not  easily  provoked,"  he  says,  "and  it 
thinketh  no  evil."  There  is  a  great  deal  in  that.  It 
is  not  easily  provoked;  we  know  how  difficult  it  is 
to  live  through  all  the  little  strains  of  ordinary  life, 
and  not  to  be  annoyed;  it  is  almost  impossible  for 
the  average  man.  Even  for  the  more  developed  it 
is  very  hard,  and  that  for  many  reasons.  First,  as 
I  have  said,  we  have  a  habit  of  irritability  which  we 
have  been  industriously  cultivating  for  many  thou- 
sands of  years;  that  has  to  be  conquered.  Secondly, 
we  are  living  in  an  age  of  great  nervous  strain,  such 
as  the  world  has  never  known  before  until  now ; 
consequently  our  nerves  are  all  out  of  tune,  most 
especially  those  of  us  who  have  to  live  in  big  cities, 
and  so  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  preserve  an 
even  balance  all  the  way  through;  still,  we  must 
try.  It  is,  I  admit,  an  almost  superhuman  thing  to 
expect,  but  at  least  we  must  try.  We  are  attempt- 
ing what  no  one  else  has  essayed;  all  who  have 


The  Greatest  of  These  379 

striven  to  live  the  spiritual  life,  as  we  wish  to  do, 
have  begun  by  retiring  from  the  world — by  living 
in  the  jungle,  becoming  hermits,  or  living  in  a 
monastery  among  monks,  so  that  they  may  either 
be  free  from  all  other  vibrations,  or  surrounded  by 
vibrations  which  shall  be  entirely  harmonious.  We 
are,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  people  who  have 
made  an  attempt  to  lead  this  higher  life  without 
in  any  sense  retiring  from  the  world;  living  in  the 
midst  of  it — in  the  midst  of  what  may  be  called  a 
very  aggravated  form  of  it. 

It  is  true  there  have  been  great  cities  in  times  of 
old;  Rome  was  grand  and  glorious;  Babylon  was  a 
huge  city;  the  City  of  the  Golden  Gate  in  Atlantis 
was  enormous  also-,  but  at  least  there  was  not  the 
pressure  then  that  there  is  now.  I  have  looked  back, 
in  the  course  of  clairvoyant  investigation  of  various 
sorts,  at  a  large  number  of  the  older  civilizations; 
some  of  them  were  far  from  good,  some  of  them 
were  distinctly  evil,  for  there  was  much  of  un- 
pleasant magic :  some  on  the  other  hand  were  mag- 
nificent, and  were  our  own  equals  in  most  respects; 
but  at  any  rate  there  never  was  one  of  them  (that  I 
have  seen)  where  we  had  so  terrible  a  hurry  and 
pressure  as  we  have  now.  It  all  comes  from  our  new 
methods  of  communication,  from  our  railways  and 
our  steamers,  our  electric  telegraphs  and  daily 
papers;  all  these  things  tend  towards  hurry. 

All  that  has  its  good  side;  it  is  teaching  us  to 
crowd  into  a  short  time  a  vast  amount  of  concen- 
trated work,  and  to  manage  many  different  things 
at  once;  it  is  not  without  its  benefit;  but  in  the 
meantime  it  is  wrecking  the  health  and  the  consti- 
tutions of  many  people;  and  it  distinctly  makes  all 


380  The  Christian  Festivals 

spiritual  progress  much  harder.  It  does  develop 
mentality  and  intellectual  power,  but  it  makes  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  meditation  or  union  with 
God  much  more  difficult,  because  the  very  essence 
of  those  things  is  that  one  should  be  quiet,  that  one 
should  be  able  to  abstract  oneself  from  the  world 
and  concentrate  on  higher  things.  Meditation  can 
be  done;  to  some  extent  many  are  doing  it — though 
without  much  success  in  many  cases,  I  know.  We 
need  not  wonder  at  our  lack  of  success  in  medita- 
tion— at  the  fact  that  other  thoughts  thrust  themselves 
in,  and  that  it  seems  to  us  almost  impossible  to  carry 
out  our  meditation  perfectly.  Let  us  remember  that 
if  we  succeed  under  these  conditions,  we  have  made 
a  great  step — for  we  are  proof  against  most  diffi- 
culties that  will  come  in  our  way.  A  man  who  has 
proved  himself  successful  in  meditation  under  con- 
venient circumstances,  away  in  a  cave  or  a  jungle, 
might  well  be  thrown  off  his  balance  if  he  had  to 
live  in  a  great  city;  so  if  we  can  do  our  work  per- 
fectly under  such  conditions,  we  have  secured  our 
footing  on  that  pathway  of  advancement. 

What  we  are  trying  is  a  hard  thing;  but  it  as- 
suredly can  be  done,  and  if  done,  it  gains  much  more 
for  us  than  the  following  of  the  easier  way  would 
gain.  It  is  one  of  our  difficulties  that  our  nerves  are 
all  strung  up  by  this  great  rush  and  activity  round 
us.  Some  of  us  may  think  that  they  do  not  take 
part  in  it;  unfortunately  we  cannot  help  doing  so 
to  a  certain  extent;  if  we  are  living  in  the  midst  of 
it  we  must  feel  it.  The  vibrations  of  a  million  men 
are  all  around  us;  those  must  be  a  powerful  factor, 
and  we,  as  individuals,  setting  ourselves  against  such 
a  current  as  that,  shall  have  a  heavy  piece  of  work 


Greatest  of  Ghese  381 

in  keeping  ourselves  steady.  It  can  be  done,  for  it 
has  been  done;  but  to  reach  this  state  of  which  the 
apostle  speaks — the  condition  incapable  of  provoca- 
tion— is  always  difficult;  and  it  is  doubly,  trebly 
difficult  under  these  present  circumstances.  Never- 
theless we  have  to  attain  to  it.  As  we  progress  along 
the  Path  we  have  to  gain  something  far  higher  than 
that  along  the  same  line;  the  last  fetter  but  one 
which  the  Arhat  casts  off  before  he  attains  Adept- 
ship  is  the  possibility  of  being  disturbed  by  any- 
thing whatever.  I  must  say  I  always  look  at  that 
condition  with  a  certain  amount  of  mild  envy!  But 
when  it  is  attained  there  is  only  one  more  fetter  to 
be  cast  off — that  of  ignorance.  To  be  perfectly  free 
from  irritability  brings  us  near  to  the  highest,  and 
of  course  that  is  still  far  in  the  future,  but  in  the 
meantime  we  must  try  to  do  what  we  can  to  follow 
St.  Paul's  advice,  and  aspire  to  the  love  which  is 
not  easily  provoked  and  thinketh  no  evil. 

Of  course  it  thinks  no  evil:  how  should  one  think 
any  evil  of  a  loved  one?  "It  rejoiceth  not  in  evil, 
but  rejoiceth  in  truth."  It  is  popularly  said  that 
love  is  blind:  I  suppose  there  is  such  a  love;  but  I 
know  there  is  a  later  stage  which  is  preternaturally 
keen — which  expects  far  more  than  the  ordinary  in 
the  way  of  achievement  and  of  behaviour  from  the 
object  of  love — which  sets  a  high  standard  just  be- 
cause of  the  love  it  bears — a  love  which  is  quite  the 
reverse  of  blind.  Perhaps  this  is  a  reaction  from 
the  other.  The  perfect  love  will  be  neither  of  these ; 
it  will  have  passed  beyond  them  both,  and  it  will 
judge  of  everything  just  as  it  is,  without  fear  and 
without  favour,  knowing  well  that  nothing  whatever 


382  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  the  loved  one  could  do  would  change  or  alienate 
the  love. 

This  feeling  of  love  does  not  depend  upon  the 
character  of  the  person  loved  at  all;  if  we  love  a 
person,  we  love  him,  and  whatever  he  may  do  will 
not  affect  our  love.  It  may  cause  us  pain  if  he 
does  evil,  because  we  love  him;  it  may  cause  us  sor- 
row and  suffering;  but  it  cannot  affect  our  love. 
That  again  is  a  thing  which  people  do  not  seem  to 
understand.  "How  can  I  love  a  person  who  has 
treated  me  in  such  and  such  a  way?"  they  say.  Do 
not  you  see  that  his  treatment  has  nothing  to  do 
with  it?  True  love  is  not  between  personality  and 
personality;  it  is  between  ego  and  ego — perhaps 
between  Monad  and  Monad:  how  do  we  know?  We 
know  so  little  yet  of  those  stupendous  heights;  but 
at  least  we  see  that  it  is  absolutely  independent  of 
what  is  done  by  the  loved  one. 

Such  love  can  be  felt  by  man;  I  know  that  my- 
self, because  I  have  seen  it ;  because  we  see  it  in  the 
Great  Ones  and  we  see  it  in  Their  disciples.  A 
beautiful  and  a  wonderful  thing  it  is  to  see.  This 
kind  of  love,  it  is  said,  "never  faileth."  This  is  St. 
Paul's  final  characterization  of  it;  it  never  faileth, 
whatever  happens;  whatever  is  done,  it  is  still  the 
same,  the  one  unchangeable  thing  in  this  changeable 
world.  Changeless,  because  love  is  God.  "He  that 
loveth  not  knoweth  not  God,  for  God  is  love."  It 
is  by  this  fact,  says  an  apostle  again,  that  "we 
know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  into  life,  be- 
cause we  love."  Not  only  is  it  a  most  important 
factor  in  life — it  is  life  itself.  It  is  the  life  of  God 
in  man,  for  God  is  love. 


6he  Greatest  of  Ghese  383 

We  do  not  perhaps  think  of  all  that  that  means; 
if  we  love,  God  dwelleth  in  us  and  His  love  is  per- 
fected in  us.  That  is  an  idea  that  I  should  like  to 
be  ever  with  us,  and  never  to  be  forgotten — that  if 
we  are  happy  enough  to  feel  the  true,  the  glorious 
love,  it  is  not  we  who  love,  but  God  who  loveth  in 
us.  It  is  the  life  of  the  Logos  Himself;  and  in 
the  proportion  in  which  that  life  pulsates  through 
us,  in  that  proportion  may  we  pour  it  out  as  love 
to  our  fellow-men.  Again,  it  is  said  in  the  scripture : 
"He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?"  If 
we  wish  to  show  forth  the  power  of  God,  we  can 
do  it  only  by  absorbing  into  ourselves  the  love  of 
God,  and  pouring  it  out  again  upon  all  these  others. 
We  must  be  His  almoners  in  this  greatest  of  all 
charities,  the  pouring  out  of  His  love ;  to  realize  that, 
and  to  do  it,  is  the  birth  of  the  Christ  within  us;  we 
can  make  no  better  resolve  than  to  carry  that  thought 
with  us  wherever  we  may  go,  and  to  show  that  be- 
cause we  love  God,  and  because  we  are  thankful  to 
Him,  we  pour  forth  in  our  daily  lives  that  love  for 
our  brothers  which  is  the  mark  of  our  unity  with 
Him. 


CHAPTEE  XXII 

DISCERNMENT 

Discernment  has  always  been  recognized  in  all 
religions  as  a  matter  of  great  importance  for  one 
who  wishes  to  make  progress  on  the  path  towards 
God.  In  the  great  Indian  religions  it  is  called  Dis- 
crimination, and  there  also  it  is  put  as  the  first  of 
the  requirements,  because  unless  a  man  possesses  a 
certain  amount  of  discrimination  to  begin  with  he 
will  not  know  what  things  he  ought  to  do,  he  will 
not  know  the  life  which  he  ought  to  live.  It  is  this 
faculty  of  discrimination  that  leads  us  all  to  adopt 
what  we  may  call,  perhaps,  the  religious  attitude.  I 
do  not  in  the  least  mean  by  that  that  the  people 
who  choose  that  line  will  necessarily  come  to  church; 
that  is  largely  a  question  of  their  training  and  of 
their  needs.  Those  who  may  be  called  the  religious 
of  the  world  are,  I  think,  those  who  recognize  that 
God  has  a  plan  for  man,  and  that  that  plan  is  evolu- 
tion. Those  who  realize  that,  those  who  know  it, 
make  an  effort  to  live  in  accordance  with  that  plan. 
They  are  definitely  on  God's  side,  so  to  speak.  There 
are  in  reality,  from  the  higher  point  of  view,  just 
two  kinds  of  people  in  the  world — the  people  who 
know,  and  the  people  who  do  not  know;  those  who 
know  that  there  is  a  plan,  and  those  who  do  not 
yet  realize  that  fact  at  all.  It  does  not  matter  in 
the  least  which  of  the  many  religions  of  the  world 
those  people  profess.  Those  of  us  who  are  trying 
to  understand  the  truth  of  things  must  realize  that 
the  form  of  religion  which  a  man  happens  to  pro- 

384 


Discernment  385 

fess  is  a  question  of  the  country  and  surroundings 
in  which  he  was  born,  and  nothing  more  than  that. 
You  are  Christian  because  you  were  born  in  what 
is  called  a  Christian  country.  If  you  had  been  born 
in  India,  you  would  with  the  same  enthusiasm  and 
devotion  have  been  Hindus.  If  you  had  been  born 
in  a  Buddhist  country,  you  would  have  been  fol- 
lowers of  the  Lord  Buddha  with  just  the  same  devo- 
tion and  just  the  same  goodness  of  heart  in  every 
way. 

To  possess  a  religious  faculty — a  religious  turn  of 
mind  that  leads  one  in  that  direction — simply  means 
to  be  a  person  who  wishes  to  follow  the  right.  What 
is  to  each  of  us  the  form  of  the  right  which  he  shall 
follow  depends,  as  I  have  said,  upon  where  he  hap- 
pens to  be  born ;  and  that  is  no  accident,  but  a  matter 
of  what  we  call  his  karma.  That  is  to  say,  it 
depends  upon  his  desert  in  previous  lives  and  what 
is  best  for  his  progress  at  the  moment.  Most  people 
find  it  difficult  to  conceive  of  themselves  as  having 
been  born  in  any  other  religion,  or  in  any  other 
race.  It  seems  strange  and  incredible  to  them  that 
they  could  have  been  born  in  one  of  the  dark- 
skinned  races  of  the  world,  for  example,  and  yet 
everyone  quite  certainly  has  been  at  some  time  in 
the  past,  and  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  they 
may  be  so  born  in  the  future. 

The  conditions  into  which  a  man  deserves  to  be 
born  include,  among  other  things,  not  only  the  race, 
but  the  religion  which  will  come  his  way;  and  it 
really  does  not  matter  which  one  of  them  it  is,  so 
long  as  he  has  the  feeling,  the  knowledge,  which 
enables  him  to  think,  to  speak,  to  act  for  the  right. 
There  are  many  truly  religiously-minded  people  who 


386  The  Christian  Festivals 

do  not  follow  any  of  these  faiths  which  we  have  men- 
tioned. Many  a  man  who  is  a  Freethinker,  an  un- 
believer, is  just  as  truly  a  follower  of  God  as  any 
of  us  could  be,  though  he  follows  Him  along  a  dif- 
ferent line.  He  is  developing  at  the  moment  a 
different  part  of  his  nature ;  but  all  those  who  under- 
stand that  there  is  a  God,  that  there  is  right  and 
there  is  wrong,  all  those  are  on  the  right  road,  and 
the  name  by  which  they  call  their  God  does  not 
matter  in  the  least.  We  think  of  God  as  Father,  Son 
and  Holy  Ghost,  and  we  speak  of  God  the  Son  as 
the  Christ.  If  we  lived  in  India  we  should  hear  the 
same  idea  of  a  Trinity,  but  the  Second  Person  would 
be  called  Vishnu,  or  sometimes  Krishna  or  Rama  in 
His  various  Manifestations.  But  it  does  not  make 
the  slightest  difference.  "All  true  worship  comes  to 
Me  through  whatsoever  channel  it  may  be  poured 
forth."  And  if  you  be  a  Muhammadan  and  call  God 
by  the  name  of  Allah — as  I  have  remarked  before — 
that  is  no  more  than  if,  being  a  Frenchman,  you 
call  Him  Le  Ion  Dieu,  the  good  God.  Allah  is  the 
Muhammadan  word  for  God,  and  the  fact  that  in 
one  case  it  indicates  a  difference  of  language,  and  in 
another  a  difference  of  religion,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case.  All  true  worship,  all  real  devotion, 
all  good  feeling  is  received  by  the  one  great  God, 
Who  is  alike  the  Father  of  us  all.  That  is  one  of 
the  things  in  which  we  must  learn  discrimination. 
May  I  emphasize  again  that  we  should  not  fall  into 
the  old  illusion,  in  which  unhappily  so  many  of  us 
•  have  been  brought  up  from  childhood,  that  ours  is 
the  only  path  that  leads  to  God,  and  that  all  others 
are  following  error,  are  following  mistaken  ideas, 
and  will  land  no  one  knows  where.  All  that  is 


Discernment  387 

nonsense;  there  are  many  paths  to  God.  You  have 
been  born  here,  so  this  is  a  way  for  you;  but  a  man 
born  in  another  place  will  have  his  own  way  which 
is  just  as  good. 

The  whole  point  is  that  we  should  know  enough  to 
stand  on  God's  side.  Many  people  standing  on 
His  side  do  not  want  to  come  to  church.  They  do 
not  feel  impressed  in  that  way.  So  long  as  they 
follow  God,  it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should 
follow  in  our  way.  Many  in  other  branches  of  the 
Christian  Church  would  tell  you  that  to  go  to  church 
is  necessary  to  salvation;  that  to  receive  certain 
sacraments  is  an  absolute  necessity.  We  do  not 
think  so.  All  these  things  are  given  to  us  as  helps, 
and  as  they  are  put  before  us  by  the  Christ  Him- 
self it  seems  wise  to  take  advantage  of  them.  That 
much  is  true,  but  to  say  that  a  man  would  be  cast 
out,  that  he  would  be  lost  because  he  did  not  use 
them  would  be  a  blasphemy  against  the  holy  Father 
of  us  all.  None  will  ever  be  cast  out  by  Him,  what- 
ever they  may  do  or  however  far  they  may  stray. 
They  cannot  lose  themselves  finally,  but  of  course  it 
is  true  that  they  can  make  their  path  to  Him  slower, 
longer,  more  tedious,  more  difficult  than  it  need  be; 
that  is  what  the  people  commonly  called  the  wicked 
are  doing,  but  that  is  all  they  can  do.  They  can- 
not cast  themselves  out,  because  the  will  of  God,  as 
we  have  said,  is  evolution;  but  they  have  not  yet 
developed  sufficient  discrimination  to  show  them 
what  things  are  worth  following  and  what  are  not 
worth  following.  Vast  numbers  of  people,  very  good 
people  in  their  way,  have  not  seen  that  yet,  and  so 
they  are  still  running  after  money,  wealth,  power — 
advantages  for  themselves  only;  because  they  have 


388  The  Christian  Festivals 

not  yet  seen  that  all  mankind  in  reality  is  ene, 
and  therefore  nothing  which  is  gained  by  one  man 
for  himself  alone  at  the  cost  of  others  can  ever 
be  really  for  his  good,  because  it  is  not  for  the  good 
of  all. 

Discrimination  is  necessary,  that  we  may  see  what 
we  ought  to  follow.  As  they  would  put  it  in  India, 
we  learn  to  follow  the  real  and  not  the  unreal.  The 
most  beautiful  commentary  that  I  have  ever  seen  on 
this  question  of  discrimination  is  contained  in  a 
book  called  At  the  Feet  of  the  Master,  written  by 
an  Indian  boy  of  about  thirteen  years  of  age.  I 
have  seen  no  presentation  of  it  so  clear,  so  beautiful 
as  in  that  little  book.  It  is  well  worth  your  fullest 
study,  I  can  assure  you.  That  book  tells  us  that 
discrimination  has  to  be  shown  in  all  sorts  of  ways, 
not  only  in  first  of  all  choosing  the  path  we  shall 
follow,  but  while  we  are  on  that  path,  every  day  to 
the  end  of  it  we  have  to  use  our  discrimination  to 
judge  between  the  right  and  wrong,  to  see  what  is 
important  and  what  is  unimportant,  what  is  useful 
and  what  is  useless,  what  is  true  and  what  is  false. 
Most  of  all,  perhaps,  what  is  selfish  and  what  is 
unselfish. 

We  talk  much  about  right  and  wrong,  and  I  think 
those  great  words  are  often  much  misused.  Few 
things  can  be  said  definitely  to  be  wrong  or  right. 
The  great  majority  of  things  that  come  before  us 
are  expedient  or  inexpedient,  desirable  or  undesir- 
able. Eight  and  wrong  are  very  strong  words  indeed 
— words  which  we  ougljt  to  use  only  when  we  are 
absolutely  certain  of  what  we  are  doing.  So  many 
people  will  tell  us  that  this  or  that  is  wrong,  when 
all  that  they  mean  is  that  it  is  contrary  to  their 


Discernment  389 

ideas  and  their  conventions.  There  are  thousands 
of  people  who  would  tell  you  that  it  is  wrong  to 
go  for  a  walk  or  to  read  any  but  the  most  serious 
books  on  Sunday.  That  is  the  sort  of  thing  to  which 
such  words  as  right  and  wrong  should  not  be  ap- 
plied. It  is  contrary  to  the  ideas  of  certain  small 
sections  of  the  people  that  this  should  be  done,  and 
so  for  those  people  it  is  better  not  to  do  it,  but  there 
is  no  reason  why  they  should  limit  the  rest  of  us 
by  that  idea.  We  might  take  it  as  a  definition,  I 
think,  of  right  and  wrong  that  that  is  right  which 
helps  on  God's  plan  of  evolution,  and  that  is  quite 
definitely  wrong  which  interferes  with  that  plan  in 
any  way.  Anything  whatever  which  injures  a 
fellow-man  or  holds  him  back  on  his  path — that  thing 
is  definitely  wrong;  but  short  of  that  it  is  a  word  I 
should  use  with  great  circumspection. 

I  can  certainly  tell  you  of  many  things  which  I 
should  think  most  undesirable.  Take  the  great  ques- 
tion of  the  drinking  of  alcohol.  To  say  that  is 
wrong  seems  to  me  assuming  much  more  than  we 
have  any  right  to  assume;  I  should  emphatically 
say  that  it  is  a  most  undesirable  thing;  it  is  a  thing 
I  would  not  do  myself,  because  I  consider  its 
influence  evil;  but  it  is  not  for  me  to  lay  down  that 
as  the  law  of  God.  I  say  that  its  effects  are  undesir- 
able, therefore  for  me  it  would  be  wrong.  Even 
that  is  a  strong  word;  for  me  it  is  simply  a  thing  I 
would  not  do;  but  to  say  that  it  is  wrong  means 
surely  that  it  is  wrong  for  all.  In  speech,  as  in 
many  other  things,  we  must  learn  discrimination; 
we  must  be  careful  how  we  use  such  strong  words 
as  right  and  wrong. 


390  &he  Christian  Festivals 

• 

The  main  thing,  I  think,  that  leads  us  to  undesir- 
able actions  is  the  fact  that  we  have  not  yet  proper 
control  of  our  bodies,  our  vehicles.  We  have  this 
physical  body,  we  have  an  emotional  or  astral  body, 
we  have  also  a  mental  body;  all  these  things  are 
our  vehicles,  and  we  ought  to  use  them  for  our  own 
purposes  to  help  the  soul,  to  whom  they  all  belong. 
We  ought  to  use  them  to  further  our  advancement 
and  to  serve  others;  but  half  the  time  people  do 
not  do  that;  they  confuse  themselves  with  their 
bodies,  and  let  those  bodies  manage  them,  which  is 
precisely  the  same  thing  as  it  would  be  if  one  were 
riding  a  horse  and  should  let  the  horse  go  wherever 
it  would — let  it  run  away  and  take  its  rider  where 
he  did  not  intend  to  go.  Under  those  circumstances 
the  horse  would  be  of  little  use  to  the  man.  If  men 
would  only  believe  it,  the  physical  body  is  just  an 
animal.  It  is  not  the  man;  it  is  just  an  animal  be- 
longing to  him,  and  he  should  treat  it  in  the  same 
way  as  he  would  treat  an  animal  that  is  serving 
him.  He  should  take  care  of  it,  he  should  feed  it 
on  the  proper  food;  he  should  be  careful  to  keep  it 
perfectly  clean  and  in  good  health;  but  the  very 
reason  for  his  association  with  that  animal  (just  as 
in  the  case  of  the  horse)  is  that  by  its  means  he  may 
be  able  to  do  things  that  he  could  not  do  without  it. 

By  means  of  the  horse  he  can  get  quickly  from 
one  place  to  another;  it  will  draw  his  goods  for  him; 
it  will  help  him  in  various  ways,  and  that  is  why 
he  keeps  it.  But  if  the  horse  declines  absolutely  to 
do  anything  he  wants  and  insists  on  having  its  own 
.way  all  the  time,  he  will  soon  say:  "Why  should  I 
be  at  the  trouble  of  keeping  this  creature  which  is 


Discernment  391 

useless  to  me?"  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
physical  body. 

The  man  is  a  soul,  and  he  keeps  this  body  because 
it  is  of  use  to  him  in  his  evolution;  and  that  is  the 
only  use  it  is  to  him.  If  it  is  not  doing  any  good 
for  him  in  that  way,  he  would  be  better  without  it, 
for  nearly  all  trouble  comes  to  him  through  the 
body,  and  without  it  he  as  a  soul  would  be  free 
from  all  that. 

We  have  to  learn  to  control  our  bodies.  The 
physical  body  is  often  lazy;  it  wants  to  do  this  and 
that  on  its  own  account;  it  has  all  sorts  of  undesir- 
able wishes.  Each  time  that  such  a  wish  arises 
just  think:  "Is* it  1  who  want  this  thing?  No,  it  is 
not  I;  it  is  my  body  that  wants  it.  Is  it  well  that 
I  should  give  it  this  thing?"  Perhaps  in  some 
cases  it  is,  but  in  many  cases  it  is  not.  Therefore  in 
this,  too,  we  must  use  discrimination. 

The  emotional  body  has  all  kinds  of  wishes  of  its 
own.  It  wants  excitement;  it  wants  a  great  stir  and 
flurry,  and  it  does  not  care  at  all  what  kind  it  is, 
because  the  excitement  produced  by  intense  anger 
is  just  as  good  for  it  as  the  feeling  produced  by 
intense  affection  or  devotion.  To  the  astral  body  it 
is  just  the  same  what  the  excitement  is  so  long  as 
there  are  violent  vibrations;  but  it  is  not  at  all  the 
same  for  the  real  man,  the  soul.  Therefore  we  must 
use  our  discrimination  here  also;  let  the  astral  body 
have  the  excitement  of  affection,  of  devotion,  of 
the  earnest  effort  to  do  the  best  we  can  (though  that 
is  perhaps  more  mental).  Let  it  have  all  such  vibra- 
tions, but  do  not  let  it  have  those  of  the  excite- 
ment that  comes  from  anger,  hatred  and  jealousy; 
these  latter  vibrations  are  no  more  useful  for  it  than 


392  The  Christian  Festivals 

those  of  the  good  emotion  would  be,  and  they  are 
very  bad  for  the  soul.  Therefore  we  must  control 
that  body;  we  must  have  some  discrimination. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  mind.  It  has  its  own 
little  wishes  apart  from  ours.  If  we  set  ourselves 
to  think  on  some  difficult  problem,  all  kinds  of 
wandering  thoughts  come  into  our  minds.  The 
mind  is  glad  to  have  that  distraction;  it  likes  the 
constant  change.  We  do  not  want  that,  so  we  pull 
our  minds  back.  There  again  we  must  use  our  dis- 
crimination. We  must  take  care  what  sort  of 
thoughts  we  let  the  mind  think.  So  long  as  it  gets 
vibration  out  of  them,  it  is  all  the  same  to  the  mind 
whether  they  are  horrible  thoughts  or  good  thoughts, 
but  it  is  not  at  all  the  same  to  us.  So  we  must  not 
let  our  mind  control  us;  we  must  not  let  our  horse 
run  away  with  us;  we  must  show  once  more  our 
discrimination. 

The  mental  body  chiefly  likes  pride.  It  wants  to 
stir  us  up  to  think  that  we  are  better  than  anybody 
else,  and  even  when  we  develop  spiritually,  it  will 
try  to  make  us  think  that  in  that  way  we  are  better 
than  other  people,  that  we  are  nobler,  more  religious. 
Another  opportunity,  obviously,  for  the  use  of 
discrimination. 

Then  there  is  the  question  of  relative  importance 
and  unimportance.  Do  we  realize  that  most  of  the 
trouble  and  difficulty  in  the  world,  most  of  the 
quarrels  and  most  of  the  hatreds  are  stirred  up  about 
things  that  do  not  matter  in  the  least — things  that 
are  absolutely,  utterly  unimportant?  What  some- 
body said  about  us,  or  what  we  fancy  someone  is 
thinking  about  us.  It  is  never  important  what  any- 
one thinks  or  says.  We  live  according  to  our  own 


Discernment  393 

conscience  before  God;  it  matters  nothing  to  us 
what  -^ebody  else  says  about  us.  These  unimpor- 
tant thoughts,  because  they  are  unduly  magnified, 
are  allowed  to  do  us  a  vast  amount  of  harm.  Again 
discrimination  is  needed.  Let  us  use  reason  and 
common  sense  to  realize  what  things  are  important 
and  what  things  are  unimportant.  Constantly 
people  take  offence  at  something  done  or  said,  and 
so  a  vast  amount  of  unnecessary  trouble  arises.  Do 
not  make  a  fuss  about  little  things;  think  first 
whether  it  is  worth  while  making  trouble  over  the 
matter.  Remember  that  peace  and  quietness,  and  a 
friendly  and  kindly  feeling  between  people,  are  ten 
times  more  important  than  the  observance  of  certain 
tiny  outward  rules.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  in 
which  trouble  is  made,  the  keeping  of  the  peace  is 
far  more  important  than  the  matter  about  which  a 
difficulty  arises.  Let  us  remember  that,  and  take 
care  that  we  at  least  are  not  the  people  to  confuse 
the  unimportant  with  the  important. 

Remember  too  the  discrimination  between  the 
true  and  the  false.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  think 
truly  and  speak  truly  of  our  fellow-men,  and  in 
order  that  we  may  do  that,  let  us  never  impute 
motives.  We  do  not  know  a  man's  reason  for  doing 
this  or  that.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  it  is  something 
we  should  never  have  thought  of,  yet  people  gaily 
impute  motives  to  others,  never  realizing  that  they 
are  diligently  spreading  falsehood  all  round  them. 
Never  speak  unless  you  know,  and  even  then  it  is 
generally  best  to  keep  quiet.  So  let  us  take  care 
that  our  discrimination  keeps  us  in  the  middle  path, 
and  shows  us  that  we  are  not  to  speak,  not  to  think, 
untruly  or  hastily  of  anyone. 


394  The  Christian  Festivals 

Then  again,  to  discriminate  between  selfishness 
and  unselfishness.  Selfishness  is  a  subtle,  insidious 
thing.  It  crops  up  again  and  again  in  life  when  we 
think  we  have  disposed  of  it.  The  power  of  dis- 
cernment is  badly  needed  there.  Remember  the 
remark  attributed  to  Christ  in  the  gospel:  "Ye  can 
discern  the  face  of  the  sky  and  of  the  earth;  but 
how  is  it  that  ye  do  not  discern  this  time  ? ' '  Which 
meant  to  say:  "Here  I,  the  great  World-Teacher, 
have  come  down  among  you,  and  yet  you  do  not  see 
it;  the  question  as  to  whether  it  is  going  to  rain  or 
not  you  can  judge;  why  cannot  you  perceive  a  far 
more  important  thing?"  That  same  World-Teacher 
is  coming  again  to  us.  Take  care  that  we  descry 
the  signs  of  the  times,  and  do  not  let  us  be  caught 
unwatchful. 

Time  fails  me  to  tell  in  how  many  ways  this  dis- 
crimination can  be  used;  all  the  time  we  must  try 
to  discover  good  in  everything  and    in    everybody. 
There  is  nothing  which  is  not  God,  and  His  light 
is  gleaming  through  everyone  of  our  fellow-creatures, 
even  though  in  some  cases  the  spark  burns  dim  anc 
is  buried  almost  out  of  sight.    God  is  there  in  every 
one,  and  all  the  beauty  in  all  the  world  is  the  divin 
beauty.    Let  us  learn  these  things,  and  because  w 
behold  God  in  all,  we  shall  be    able  to  help    all   to 
draw  nearer  to  God  and  to  realize  Him  better. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII 
WISDOM 

Wisdom  is  of  vast  importance  to  the  Churcli. 
In  times  past  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  opposi- 
tion between  the  Christian  Church  and  modern 
science.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  the 
Church  setting  herself  in  opposition  to  anything  in 
the  nature  of  new  discovery,  and  even  last  century 
there  was  the  most  bitter  hostility  on  the  part  of 
the  Churches  both  of  Rome  and  England  to  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution — to  Darwin 's  new  theories  and 
discoveries.  We  all  remember  the  historic  case  of 
Galileo,  who  was  forced  by  the  Church  to  recant  his 
great  discovery  of  the  motion  of  the  earth.  We 
know  how  in  order  to  save  his  life  he  was  obliged 
publicly  to  proclaim  that  the  earth  did  not  move, 
although  even  then  he  muttered  under  his  breath 
E  pur  se  muove,  "But  nevertheless  it  does  move." 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  as  that  was  a  shame  and  a 
disgrace;  a  Church  which  adopted  such  an  obscuran- 
tist policy  as  that,  whach  set  herself  in  opposition 
to  the  truth,  whatever  that  truth  may  be,  was  cer- 
tainly not  fulfilling  her  functions  as  she  should  have 
done.  It  is  difficult  for  us  now  to  understand  how 
the  Church  could  have  taken  that  attitude.  Perhaps 
there  may  have  been  two  reasons  for  it.  I  am  afraid 
we  must  admit  that  one  of  them  was  that  the  Church 
was  the  great  teaching  body  of  the  time,  and  that 
she  was  jealous  of  any  kind  of  interference  with  that 
position.  Perhaps  it  is  difficult  for  us  now  to  realize 
how  things  must  have  seemed  to  the  mediaeval  church- 

395 


396  The  Christian  Festivals 

man  as  well  as  to  the  common  people  of  that  time. 
All  knowledge  was  in  the  possession  of  the  monks. 
They  were  for  a  long  time  in  European  history  the 
only  people  who  could  read  and  write.  The  great 
knights  and  nobles  were  often  quite  illiterate  men, 
judging  by  our  standards  of  the  present  day  (just 
as  great  Zulu  chieftains  are  illiterate)  though 
valiant  leaders  and  exceedingly  good  people  in  their 
own  way  and  along  their  own  line.  Even  the  very 
Kings  signed  their  names  with  great  difficulty  and 
considerable  illegibility,  as  we  may  see  by  examining 
old  documents  such  as  our  own  Magna  Charta.  Many 
such  papers  bear  signatures  of  which  the  average 
schoolboy  would  be  ashamed. 

All  knowledge  being  in  the  hands  of  the  Church, 
she  was  very  intolerant  of  anybody  else  who  advanced 
any  pretensions  in  that  direction.  She  adopted 
much  the  same  attitude  as  some  scientific  people  of 
the  present  day:  "What  I  know  not,  is  not  worth 
knowing."  Political  considerations  also  had  sway, 
for  unfortunately  even  then  the  great  Roman  Church 
was  beginning  to  dabble  in  politics.  That  she  has 
done  so  ever  since  has  been  her  curse  and  her  con- 
demnation. Beyond  question  any  Church  which 
interferes  in  matters  of  that  sort  is  dropping  her 
spiritual  heritage  and  forgetting  the  work  which 
her  Lord  gave  her  to  do,  which  is  not  connected  with 
politics,  but  with  the  helping  of  the  world. 

Another  reason  which  may  have  conduced  to  that 
curious  position  was  that  churchmen  took  two  or 
three  texts  and  twisted  them  to  mean  a  contradic- 
tion of  the  general  spirit  even  of  the  bible.  In  the 
Liberal  Catholic  Church  we  do  not  attach  so  much 
importance  to  the  verdict  of  the  bible  on  any  given 


Wisdom  397 

point  as  do  some  other  religious  bodies,  because  we 
recognize  that  it  is  but  one  of  many  volumes  of 
the  sacred  lore,  but  one  of  many  scriptures;  and 
that  all  of  them  alike,  while  they  contain  much  that 
is  noble  and  true  and  beautiful,  also  contain  many 
statements  reflecting  the  average  knowledge  of  the 
period  when  they  were  written,  and  consequently 
by  no  means  stating  the  absolute  facts  about  every- 
thing. As  Bret  Harte  puts  it,  "They  did  not  know 
everything  down  in  Judaea."  They  certainly  had 
not  one-tenth  of  the  information  which  we  in  the 
present  day  have  on  certain  points;  we  do  know 
more  than  they  did,  and  it  would  indeed  be  a  shame 
upon  us  if  we  did  not.  Those  books  were  written 
two  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  world  has  not  stood 
still  during  that  period.  I  know  that  there  is  a 
statement  that  the  wisdom  of  this  world  is  foolish- 
ness to  God,  and  I  can  see  what  that  means — that 
the  attitude  of  this  world  towards  all  such  ques- 
tions as  money-making  and  worldly  prosperity  is 
often  foolishness  before  God,  but  most  emphatically 
it  does  not  at  all  mean  that  it  is  not  a  good  thing 
to  have  wisdom.  The  Christ  is  alleged  to  have  said 
that  God  has  hidden  certain  secret  things  from  the 
wise  and  prudent,  and  has  revealed  them  unto  babes. 
That  is  not  a  disparagement  of  wisdom,  but  of  the 
people  who  turned  such  wisdom  as  they  possessed 
in  the  wrong  direction,  and  used  it  selfishly  instead 
of  unselfishly. 

But  if  there  be  a  text  or  two  that  can  be  twisted 
to  tell  against  the  possession  of  knowledge  and 
wisdom,  I  can  quote  you  a  hundred  from  the  same 
book  exalting  it.  Remember  how  we  are  given  in 
one  case  as  a  good  wish  for  a  young  man:  "The 


398  The  Christian  Festivals 

Lord  give  thee  wisdom  and  understanding. "  David, 
who  was  not  particularly  wise  in  many  ways,  is 
alleged  to  have  said:  "Give  me  understanding  and  I 
shall  keep  Thy  law."  And  Solomon,  said  to  have 
been  the  wisest  man  among  the  Jews,  emphatically 
remarked  that  they  who  despise  wisdom  and  instruc- 
tion are  fools.  "Happy  is  the  man  who  getteth 
understanding."  And  in  another  place:  "Get  wis- 
dom, get  understanding,  and  forget  it  not." 
"Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing,  therefore  get  wis- 
dom, and  with  all  thy  getting  get  understanding." 
"The  knowledge  of  the  holy  is  understanding,  the 
excellence  of  knowledge  is  that  wisdom  giveth  life 
to  them  that  have  it."  Those  are  just  a  few  texts 
taken  at  random;  others  will  be  found  in  the  Psalm 
of  Wisdom  on  p.  271  in  our  Liturgy;  but  even  these 
are  enough  to  show  that  the  bible  cannot  be  quoted 
as  in  favour  of  ignorance.  St.  Peter  said  to  his 
people.-*" Add  to  your  faith  virtue,  and  to  virtue 
knowledge" — a  very  necessary  qualification;  and  St. 
Paul  wrote:  "We  teach  wisdom  to  them  that  are 
perfect" — a  technical  term  of  the  Mysteries. 

We  read  in  the  gospel  that  Jesus  Himself  was 
full  of  wisdom,  and  that  He  increased  in  wisdom  and 
stature.  The  world  is  evolving  slowly — very  slowly, 
I  admit,  but  still  it  is  evolving;  and  many  things 
which  were  secret  when  these  scriptures  were  writ- 
ten are  known  more  fully  now.  Few  people  knew 
anything  then;  the  rest  just  believed.  There  are. 
only  a  few  now  who  know  fully,  but  still  the  general 
level  of  knowledge  is  much  higher  now  than  it  was 
then,  and  therefore  more  people  are  now  ready 
to  know.  There  is  a  certain  danger  in  putting  the 
fruits  of  advanced  wisdom  before  people  who  are 


Wisdom  399 

quite  unfitted  for  them.  We  have  had  recently  a 
striking  example  of  that.  There  are  all  sorts  of 
wonderful  secrets  in  nature — secrets  of  chemistry, 
secrets  of  electricity,  secrets  of  all  kinds  which  are 
at  present  unknown  to  us,  but  will  undoubtedly  be 
discovered  by  man.  That  practically  means  that 
man  is  allowed  to  discover  them,  that  they  are  en- 
trusted to  him  as  time  goes  on;  but  their  reception 
so  far  has  not  been  encouraging.  The  greatest  use 
that  has  been  made  of  the  new  knowledge  in  science 
and  in  chemistry  has  been  that  men  have  thereby 
tried  to  destroy  one  another  more  efficiently  and 
with  greater  horror.  Science  has  been  swept  into 
the  vortex  of  the  great  war.  It  remains  to  be  seen, 
now  that  it  is  over,  whether  science  will  also  be 
used  for  the  purposes  of  peace.  It  certainly  can 
be;  I  hope  that  it  will. 

Men  are  not  yet  ready  to  have  unlimited  power 
put  in  their  hands,  because  the  great  majority  of 
men  are  not  yet  unselfish;  they  have  not  yet  wisdom 
enough  to  be  trusted  with  the  lower  knowledge.  But 
at  least  more  people  are  ready  to  know,  to  under- 
stand, now  than  ever  before. 

That  is  one  reason  for  our  existence  as  a  Church. 
We,  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church,  exist  in  order  that 
we  may  explain  to  those  who  are  ready  to  accept  it 
a  little  more  than  has  hitherto  been  explained  of 
the  great  facts  which  underlie  nature.  A  little 
more  we  may  know  now  about  God  and  man  and 
about  the  relationship  between  them,  and  there  is 
no  reason  whatever  for  any  of  us  ever  to  fear  know- 
ledge. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  mediaeval  Church 
feared  knowledge;  it  feared  those  discoveries  which 
would  overthrow  its  authority,  overthrow  the  blind 


400  The  Christian  Festivals 

faith  which  people  reposed  in  it.  But  in  this  Church 
we  have  no  fear  of  any  knowledge  or  any  dis- 
covery. On  the  contrary  we  welcome  it,  for  the 
more  we  can  know  of  the  wonderful  works  of  God, 
the  greater  will  be  our  love  and  our  reverence  to- 
wards Him.  Not  knowledge  but  ignorance  is  the 
thing  to  be  feared.  Ignorance  is  the  thing  from 
which  we  need  to  be  saved. 

What  is  this  wisdom  we  are  to  acquire?  There 
is  a  saying  in  the  bible  (mistranslated  as  usual) 
which  I  have  already  quoted:  "The  fear  of  the 
Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom."  I  do  not 
remember  at  the  moment  the  Hebrew  word  which 
is  here  rendered  fear  of  the  Lord,  but  the 
Greek  equivalent  is  theoseleia.  We  could  twist  it 
to  mean  fear,  but  it  is  intended  to  signify  deep 
reverence,  for  the  word  sebomai  is  simply  "I  wor- 
ship." Deep  reverence  for  God  is  the  beginning 
of  wisdom.  That  statement  is  perfectly  true.  The 
man  who  is  flippant  and  scornful,  and  does  not 
acknowledge  anything  greater  or  wiser  than  him- 
self, has  embarked  on  a  course  of  error  which  leads 
but  to  confusion;  for  "reverence  for  that  which  is 
worthy  of  reverence"  may  well  be  called  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom.  For  wisdom  is  to  know  God,  so 
far  as  the  mere  mortal  may  know  Him;  to  know 
Him  to  be  Love  and  Light,  to  know  that  in  Him  is 
no  darkness  at  all,  that  we  never  need  call  on  Him 
to  have  mercy  on  us,  presupposing  thereby  that  if 
we  did  not  ask  Him  He  would  do  something  very 
much  the  reverse,  which  amounts  to  crediting  Him 
with  our  own  passions  and  imperfections — a  thing 
which  we  have  no  right  to  do.  It  is  wisdom  to 
know  something,  so  far  as  we  may,  of  His  plan,  to 


Wisdom  401 

adapt  ourselves  to  it  so  far  as  we  can,  to  take 
advantage  of  what  He  offers  to  us — of  the  help  and 
blessing  of  all  kinds  which  He  holds  out  to  man,  if 
man  will  take  it.  The  very  sacraments  which  we 
administer,  what  are  they  but  offers  from  God, 
opportunities  given  by  Him  for  us  to  make  more 
rapid  progress,  to  draw  nearer  to  Him? 

If  we  can  understand  something  of  His  plan  and 
try  to  adapt  ourselves  to  it,  we  shall  be  growing  to- 
wards that  perfect  wisdom  which  is  Himself.  We 
must  learn  that  there  are  many  ways  to  Him,  and 
many  ways  of  looking  on  Him,  and  that  all  of  them 
have  in  them  some  aspect  of  the  truth,  except  those 
which  credit  Him  with  human  errors  and  faults — 
jealousy,  anger,  revenge,  hatred.  These  we  know  to 
be  shameful  qualities,  even  in  ourselves.  How  then 
dare  we  attribute  such  feelings,  such  thoughts  to 
God?  It  is  wisdom  for  us  to  try  to  understand,  to 
recognize  that  we  ourselves  are  but  at  the  beginning 
of  all  this,  and  that  we  cannot  hope  to  know  every- 
thing, but  yet  that  certain  broad  principles  are  estab- 
lished. We  may  cling  to  these  and  we  may  without 
fear  reason  from  them.  Wisdom  will  utterly  do 
away  with  narrowness  and  exclusiveness ;  that  is  one 
of  the  most  important  ways  in  which  it  will  help 
us  along  our  path,  for  He  Himself  has  said:  "If 
you  know  the  truth,  the  truth  shall  make  you  free/' 
Any  Church  worthy  of  the  name  should  be  a  veri- 
table Santa  Sophia,  a  Church  of  the  heavenly  wisdom, 
so  that  through  it  men  may  gradually  draw  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  comprehension  of  Him  Who  is 
Himself  Wisdom,  Strength  and  Beauty,  Truth  and 
Love. 


CHAPTEE  XXIV 
SELF-DEDICATION 

One  of  the  intentions  set  before  us  in  our  Liturgy 
is  self-dedication — the  idea  that  we  may  so  dedicate 
and  devote  our  lives  to  God's  service  that  we  may 
be  true  and  faithful  members  of  His  holy  Church, 
and  may  live  as  He  desires  that  we  should  live.  How 
must  we  set  to  work  to  do  that?  For  the  conditions 
of  civilization  now  are  very  different  from  those 
when  the  command  was  given.  Eemember  how  the 
Christ  answered  a  young  man  who  came  to  Him,  and 
asked:  "What  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal 
life?"  First  the  Christ  told  him  to  begin  by  keep- 
ing the  commandments,  to  keep  all  the  rules  which 
have  been  given  for  holy  living.  And  the  young 
man  replied  that  he  had  kept  those  from  his  youth 
up,  or  at  least  he  had  tried  to  keep  them;  and  he 
asked  what  more  he  could  do.  Then  Christ  said 
in  effect:  "If  you  want  to  rise  to  something 
higher  than  that,  if  you  want  to  go  further  still, 
then  go  and  sell  all  you  have,  give  the  money 
to  the  poor  and  come  and  follow  Me."  And 
we  are  told  that  the  young  man  went  away 
sorrowful,  because  he  had  great  possessions.  I 
think  that  all  through  Church  history  that  young 
man  has  been  treated  very  unfairly,  because  the 
usual  tendency  is  to  assume  that  he  would  not  give 
up  his  wealth  for  the  sake  of  Christ.  We  have  no 
right  to  assume  that;  a  rich  man  has  many  duties 
as  well  as  his  wealth.  It  is  not  a  question  only  of 
pleasure;  he  may  well  have  been  so  situated  that 

402 


Self- Dedication  403 

he  could  not  give  up  everything  and  become  a  wan- 
dering preacher,  a  follower  of  the  Christ.  It  is  not 
possible  for  all  of  us  to  do  that.  There  are  those 
of  us  who  are  able  to  cast  aside  all  hope  of  worldly 
advancement  because  we  have  no  one  depending 
upon  us,  and  we  can  devote  ourselves  wholly  to  the 
religious  life  in  some  form  or  other.  But  the  great 
majority  of  us  have  our  living  to  earn,  and  however 
willing  and  earnest  and  anxious  we  may  be,  we 
cannot  give  up  the  whole  of  our  time  to  religious 
work  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 

What  then  are  we  to  do,  and  how  are  we  to  take 
this  idea  of  self  -dedication  1  It  is  perfectly  possible 
for  us  all  to  embrace  it  and  to  live  the  Christly 
life,  if  we  will  only  take  all  our  duties  as  duties  to 
be  done  for  Him;  if  we  will  do  them  all  in  His 
Name  as  well  as  we  can,  we  shall  be  serving  Him  just 
as  really,  though  not  so  pleasantly  for  ourselves,  as 
if  we  were  able  to  give  up  everything  to  what  is 
commonly  called  a  life  of  good  works.  Remember 
what  George  Herbert  said  three  hundred  years  ago: 

Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  His  laws, 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine. 

If  we  do  all  our  duties  in  His  Name,  and  make  it 
an  offering  to  Him  that  we  do  them  as  well  and  as 
perfectly  as  we  can,  we  are  doing  the  best  we  can 
to  dedicate  ourselves  to  Him.  It  is  not  only  a  ques- 
tion of  work  to  be  done;  it  is  a  question  of  the  atti- 
tude we  hold,  the  feelings  that  we  permit,  and  the 
thoughts  that  we  allow  in  ourselves.  If  we  want  to 
live  for  Christ,  we  must  live  like  Christ  as  nearly 
as  we  can;  and  if  we  cannot,  as  He  did,  give  all  our 
time  to  altruistic  work,  at  least  we  can  go  about 
doing  good,  and  that  is  what  was  said  about  Him. 


404  The  Christian  Festivals 

Wherever  we  are,  and  with  whomsoever  we  come 
into  contact,  we  can  make  it  our  business  to  see  that 
our  influence  shall  be  a  good  influence  and  never  an 
evil  one ;  to  do  that  is  to  dedicate  our  lives  to  Christ. 

Assuredly  we  must  keep  the  commandments,  but 
that  does  not  necessarily  refer  to  the  ten  command- 
ments of  Moses,  which  are  a  very  imperfect  code  of 
morality  in  ever  so  many  ways.  Far  nobler  is  that 
which  our  Master  the  Christ  Himself  gave  us  when 
He  said:  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all 
thy  mind  and  with  all  thy  strength.  This  is  the 
first  and  great  commandment,  and  the  second  is 
like  unto  it:  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thy- 
self." That  is  a  far  grander  statement  than  that 
made  through  Moses  thousands  of  years  before,  when 
a  distinctly  tribal  deity,  one  among  others,  is  made 
to  represent  himself  as  jealous  lest  worship  should 
be  diverted  from  him  and  given  to  those  others — a 
conception  no  doubt  fit  for  the  Jewish  tribes  at 
that  early  stage  of  their  history,  but  certainly  not 
the  finest  idea  of  God  which  can  be  put  before  us. 

The  world  is  evolving,  because  it  is  God's  will 
that  it  shall  evolve,  and  we  know  more  about  a  great 
many  things  than  the  Jews  of  three  or  four  thousand 
years  ago  knew;  so  it  is  right  and  fitting  that  God's 
commandments  should  be  put  before  us  in  another 
guise.  More  and  more  of  His  glorious  truth  is 
being  unfolded  to  us;  in  every  other  branch  of  life 
but  religion  we  should  at  once  admit  that  we  know 
a  great  deal  more  than  did  those  people  thousands 
of  years  ago.  And  in  religion  also  we  must  be  able 
to  understand  more  than  they,  and  assuredly  we  do 
understand  the  spiritual  meaning  of  a  great  many 


Self-Dedication  405 

things  which  in  those  early  days  were  taken  as 
merely  material  and  mechanical  instructions.  The 
world  is  advancing  but  slowly,  otherwise  we  should 
not  have  needed  that  awful  war;  but  even  that,  ter- 
rible as  it  has  been,  awful  as  its  consequences  have 
been,  is  a  step  in  advance,  for  more  good  than  evil 
will  come  from  it  all  in  the  end.  We  may  be  sure 
of  that,  if  we  acknowledge  that  God  rules  the  world 
and  that  all  is  moving  towards  a  grand  consum- 
mation in  the  future.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence 
of  that  fact  in  other  ways;  so  even  if  we  encounter 
one  particular  case  in  which  we  are  not  yet  able 
to  see  it,  it  would  be  foolish  for  us  to  assume  that 
all  the  other  indications  are  therefore  wrong.  We 
shall  understand  it  all  one  day. 

How  then  can  we  here  and  now  dedicate  our 
lives  to  Christ?  We  must  not  think  of  the  Christ 
only  as  historical — only  of  a  Christ  who  lived  and 
died  two  thousand  years  ago;  we  must  remember 
that  there  is  a  living  Christ  Who  can  and  will  inspire 
us  now,  Who  stands  behind  His  Church — yes,  and 
behind  all  the  world  as  well,  for  all  the  world  is  but 
an  extension  of  His  Church,  though  it  may  not  know 
it  yet.  And  He  is  always  ready  to  help,  inspire  and 
strengthen  any  person  whatever  who  will  lay  him- 
self open  to  that  help.  The  living  Christ  is  our 
nearest  friend,  because  He  can  come  so  much  nearer 
to  us  than  any  one  else  can  come;  He  can  be  so 
much  more  to  us  than  any  one  else  can  be.  Never 
let  us  forget  ftie  living  Christ  Who  inspires  us  all 
through  life. 

How  can  we  approach  Him?  How  can  we  draw 
nearer  to  Him?  By  making  ourselves  more  like 
Him;  by  living,  as  far  as  we  can,  as  He  lived;  by 


406  The  Christian  Festivals 

adopting  His  attitude  towards  others.  What  was 
that?  We  read  in  an  epistle:  "Even  Christ  pleased 
not  Himself. "  Let  every  man  of  us,  then,  for- 
get himself  and  go  to  work  to  try  to  be  useful  for 
Christ's  sake  to  others.  In  so  doing  we  are  putting 
ourselves  into  the  Christlike  attitude;  that  is  what 
Christ  did;  He  lived  not  for  Himself,  not  for  His 
own  honour  and  glory  and  fame  at  all,  but  abso- 
lutely for  others.  He  descended,  He  limited  His 
glory,  He  sacrificed  Himself  wholly  for  others. 
That  is  what  we,  too,  must  try  to  do;  and  do  not 
let  us  misunderstand  that  word  sacrifice.  Many 
think  that  to  sacrifice  means  always  to  give  up;  they 
are  forgetting  the  meaning  of  the  word.  Sacer  in 
Latin  means  holy,  and  facere  is  to  make.  To  sacri- 
fice anything  is  to  make  it  holy  unto  the  Lord.  We 
can  sacrifice  our  lives  to  Him  without  suffering  the 
death  of  a  martyr;  if  we  make  our  lives  holy  unto 
the  Lord,  we  are  sacrificing  them  in  the  best  and  the 
truest  sense. 

Perhaps  it  may  involve  a  little  of  the  other  kind 
of  sacrifice  as  well.  We  may  find  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  give  up  some  of  our  lower  desires,  some  of 
the  things  that  not  we,  but  our  lower  nature,  would 
like.  It  is  worth  while,  for  we  are  souls;  indeed,  we 
are  even  more  than  that,  for  the  soul  itself  is  only 
a  partial  manifestation  of  the  spirit.  We  are  sparks 
of  the  divine  life;  in  everyone  of  us  there  is  the 
Christ  which  is  our  hope  of  glory,  "and  so  to  give 
up  anything  which  you  see  would  be  harmful  to 
you  as  a  spirit  is  hardly  worth  calling  a  sacrifice, 
even  though  it  be  something  which  is  dear  to  the 
lower  self. 


Self-Dedication  407 

This  may  sound  impracticable  to  some,  because 
they  have  allowed  their  religion  to  become  too  much 
a  merely  historical  religion.  It  is  considered  by 
many  people  that  that  which  saves  a  man  is  his 
belief  that  Christ  lived  and  died  in  Judsea  a  couple 
of  thousand  years  ago.  They  accept  that  just 
in  the  same  way  as  they  accept  the  other  fact  that 
Julius  Caesar  landed  in  Britain  55  B.C.,  and  I  really 
believe  that  the  one  fact  does  them  about  as 
much  good  as  the  other,  if  they  do  not  make  it  a 
practical  factor  in  their  lives,  and  do  not  realize 
that  the  Christ  Who  took  a  body  two  thousand 
years  ago  is  a  living  and  mighty  power  behind  His 
Church  to-day. 

One  who  travels  and  lives  in  Eastern  countries, 
as  I  have  done,  has  food  for  rather  unpleasant 
thought  sometimes  when  he  looks  round  him  at  the 
people  whom  he  may  in  his  childhood  have  been 
taught  to  call  the  heathen,  because  he  cannot  but  see 
(I  am  thinking  mainly  at  the  moment  of  India)  that 
those  people  round  him  are  intensely  religious 
people,  and  furthermore  that  their  idea  of  religion 
is  not  precisely  that  in  which  he  himself  has  been 
brought  up.  I  am  not  dwelling  for  the  moment  upon 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  different  religion ;  that  seems 
to  me  of  very  little  importance;  what  I  mean  is  that 
to  them  religion  is  a  living  actual  thing  which  per- 
meates their  lives  every  day  and  all  day  long.  If 
we  can  ever  become  intimate  enough  with  a  Brahman 
really  to  see  his  daily  life,  we  shall  find  that  there 
is  not  a  single  action  he  does,  from  the  time  he 
gets  up  in  the  morning  to  the  time  he  goes  to  sleep, 
which  is  not  a  religious  action,  which  is  not  stamped 
with  his  religion.  "When  he  rises  from  his  bed,  a 


408  The  Christian  Festivals 

religious  thought  is  put  into  his  mind;  when  he 
bathes  there  is  a  thought  of  a  similar  nature  in 
connection  with  that;  whether  he  eats  or  drinks,  or 
whatever  he  does,  every  one  of  his  actions  is  accom- 
panied by  a  religious  thought.  I  grant  you  that 
sometimes  all  that  becomes  merely  formal,  because 
there  is  a  deal  of  human  nature  in  India,  as  well  as 
elsewhere.  There  is  certainly  that  danger  of 
formality;  but  the  prominent  fact  stands  out  that 
these  people  are  religious  not  once  a  week  on  Sun- 
day but  all  the  year  round,  every  day  and  every 
minute  of  the  day.  That  strikes  us  as  strange, 
because  we  have  not  been  used  to  it.  There  are 
many  of  us,  I  hope  and  believe,  who  keep  religious 
thought  at  the  back  of  their  minds  always,  but  they 
are  a  small  minority.  I  am  afraid  that  the  great 
majority  of  our  people  do  not  keep  their  religion 
always  at  the  back  of  their  minds  but  relegate  it 
to  stated  times  and  days,  even  though  it  may  to 
some  extent  influence  their  lives. 

Because  of  that  it  seems  to  many  occidentals 
somehow  improper,  indecent  even,  that  the  oriental 
should  put  religion  forward  always,  as  he  does;  it 
seems  like  making  it  too  common,  and  the  European 
is  apt  to  think  that  it  must  be  hypocritical.  Yet, 
that  is  precisely  what  was  intended  for  all  of  us; 
if  we  look  into  the  fundamentals  of  our  own  religion 
we  shall  find  that  it  was  meant  for  us  in  Christianity, 
just  as  much  as  for  the  Brahman  in  Hinduism.  All 
the  little  outer  details  to  which  he  has  to  attend 
every  moment  are  not  laid  down  for  us,  because  this 
is  a  later  religion  and  its  great  Founder  hoped  that 
it  might  be  sufficient  to  say  to  His  Christian  fol- 
lowers :  ' '  Keep  the  great  truths  always  in  your  mind ; 


Self-Dedication  409 

never  forget  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven. "  I 
ain  afraid  we  have  often  disappointed  Him;  I  am 
afraid  we  have  tended  to  forget  the  mighty  truths 
which  lie  behind  far  too  often;  and  so  an  Eastern 
religion  often  astonishes  us  because  of  its  intense 
vitality. 

In  the  face  of  that,  it  seems  to  me  amazing  con- 
ceit on  our  part  to  send  missionaries  to  try  to  con- 
vert such  people.  I  feel  that  we  should  first  try  to 
bring  our  own  lives  fully  into  harmony  with  the 
teaching  of  the  Christ;  for  the  strange  idea  that 
only  through  one  Name  and  along  one  line  can  God 
be  approached  is  peculiar  to  us.  I  have  had  an 
unpleasant  shock  once  or  twice  in  that  way  when 
travelling  in  the  East.  I  say,  perhaps,  to  some 
earnest  Christian  missionary:  "How  good  all  these 
people  around  us  are,  how  charitable,  how  kindly; 
what  splendid  lives  they  are  living;  cannot  they  be 
saved?"  The  answer  depends  upon  the  missionary. 
I  have  had  from  a  prelate  of  the  Roman  Church  the 
emphatic  statement  that  he  thought  they  had  just 
as  good  a  chance  of  salvation  as  he  had.  But  there 
are  very  few  who  would  say  that,  and  often  the 
missionary  has  replied:  "We  must  trust  in  the  un- 
covenanted  mercies  of  God  for  them,  but  I  am  afraid 
their  chances  are  very  poor."  Then  I  have  turned 
to  the  so-called  heathen  and  said:  "Look  at  these 
Christians;  they  are  living  good  lives;  do  you  not 
think  that  they  also  will  attain  Nirvana?"  (That 
is  the  phrase  used  among  the  Buddhists  for  the  final 
consummation,  equivalent  to  the  "going  to  heaven" 
of  the  more  ignorant  among  the  Christians.)  The 
reply  was  given  with  the  greatest  astonishment: 
"Attain  Nirvana!  Of  course  they  will!  Why 


410  The  Christian  Festivals 

should  they  not?"  "But,"  I  said,  "they  do  not 
believe  as  you  do."  The  Buddhist  monk  replied: 
"What  does  that  matter?  They  are  trying  their 
best  to  carry  out  the  teachings  of  the  Lord  Buddha, 
although  they  never  heard  of  Him;  and  surely  that 
is  just  as  good." 

We  see  at  once  the  difference  in  the  attitude,  and 
certainly  the  heathen  showed  to  greater  advantage 
than  the  Christian;  but  only  because  the  Christian 
had  misunderstood,  because  he  did  not  realize  the 
worth  and  glory  of  the  Master's  teaching,  Who  said: 
"Other  sheep  I  have,  who  are  not  of  this  fold"; 
Who,  when  He  spoke  of  what  is  called  the  day  of 
judgment,  and  told  His  disciples  what  questions  will 
be  asked  of  those  who  come  before  Him,  to  decide 
whether  they  are  to  go  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left, 
unaccountably  forgot  to  ask  whether  they  believed 
in  Him,  or  even  had  ever  heard  of  Him,  but  enquired 
instead:  "Have  you  fed  the  hungry,  have  you 
clothed  the  naked,  have  you  visited  the  sick  and 
those  in  prison?"  And  if  the  answer  is  "Yes," 
then  comes  the  swift  decision:  "Go  to  my  right 
hand,  well-beloved  of  my  Father."  What  the  man 
has  believed  is  not  the  question;  that  does  not  seem 
to  matter  at  all;  the  result  entirely  depends  upon 
what  he  has  done. 

That  gives  us  some  indication  of  the  way  in  which 
we  may  dedicate  ourselves  to  Christ.  Let  us  try 
to  live  in  the  broad  open-air,  in  the  glorious  sunlight 
of  God.  Let  us  try  to  understand  the  teaching  of 
the  Christ,  and  live  as  He  lived,  in  charity  with  all. 
Let  us  not  stop  to  think  about  ourselves.  We  have 
not  time  for  wounded  feelings;  we  have  not  time  to 
hate  our  brother  because  of  something  that  he  is  sup- 


Self -Dedication  411 

posed  to  have  said  or  done.  Our  one  business  is  to 
be  so  occupied  with  trying  to  do  him  good  that  we 
have  not  time  to  think  about  what  he  may  have 
thought  or  said  about  us.  Perhaps  he  may  have  said 
something  he  should  not;  suppose  he  did;  after  all, 
if  we  think  of  it,  that  does  not  hurt  us  in  the  least. 
A  man  speaks;  what  is  it?  A  vibration  of  the  air, 
a  sound.  If  we  had  never  heard  of  it,  it  would 
not  have  troubled  us  at  all;  but  because  we  have 
heard  of  it  we  stir  ourselves  up  and  become  annoyed 
and  angry.  Is  that  the  other  man's  fault?  What 
he  did  would  not  have  hurt  us  in  the  least  unless  we 
happened  to  know  of  it,  and  because  we  know  of  it 
we  stir  up  trouble  for  ourselves.  That  is  not  com- 
mon sense,  and  it  is  not  the  teaching  of  the  Christ. 
Let  us  live  with  Him  and  for  Him,  and  dedicate 
ourselves  to  Him  in  that  way;  for  His  sake  let  us 
help  these  our  brethren,  because  they  also  are  His 
children;  and  if  they  do  not  know  that,  if  they 
are  wandering  away  from  Him,  all  the  more  do  they 
need  the  help  which  He  through  us  can  give  them 
if  we  have  no  time  for  petty  personal  feelings. 

We  read  in  an  epistle  that  we  must  be  like- 
minded  one  towards  another.  We  must  keep  the 
even  tenour  of  our  thought,  and  we  must  feel  to- 
wards people  and  treat  people  as  we  should  like 
them  to  feel  towards  us  and  to  treat  us.  So  often  we 
are  just  to  one  person  because  we  like  him,  and 
unjust  to  another  because  we  happen  not  to  like 
him;  all  alike  are  our  brothers,  for  God  is  the 
Father  of  all;  that  is  the  lesson  which  Christ  tries 
to  impress  upon  us  over  and  over  again.  Therefore 
let  us  do  nothing  that  we  cannot  offer  to  Him  as  a 
sacrifice,  nothing  that  we  cannot  make  holy,  nothing 


412  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  we  cannot  do  in  His  Name.  To  live  thus  is  to 
dedicate  ourselves  to  the  service  of  the  Christ;  and 
that  we  can  all  do,  however  busy  we  may  be,  however 
troubled  we  may  be;  we  can  try  to  adopt  the  Chris- 
like  attitude  towards  all  those  round  us,  so  that 
the  world  shall  be  better  and  happier  in  that  little 
corner  where  we  live,  because  we  have  lived  in  it 
as  followers  of  the  Christ,  for  His  sake  and  in  His 
Name. 


CHAPTEE  XXV 

PERSEVERANCE 

Perseverance  is  one  of  the  most  necessary  of  the 
qualities  which  we  have  to  develop,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  difficult.  "We 
have  all  heard  or  read  of  the  great  martyrs,  and  we 
all  honour  them  for  the  wonderful  victories  that  they 
have  gained  for  the  faith;  and  perhaps  we  have 
sometimes  wondered  whether  we  could  have  done 
and  suffered  what  they  did — whether  we  could  have 
faced  death  so  undauntedly  for  Christ's  most  holy 
Name.  I  hope  we  could;  I  believe  we  could.  We 
are  quite  ordinary  people,  most  of  us;  by  no  means 
great  saints  as  yet,  though  we  hope  to  be  so  some 
day.  Yet  quite  ordinary  people  sometimes  respond 
magnificently  to  the  extraordinary  demand  of  some 
sudden  emergency.  We  have  had  abundant  examples 
of  that  in  the  recent  war;  again  and  again  men 
who  in  every-day  life  were  in  no  way  distinguishable 
from  their  fellows  have  blossomed  out  into  splendid 
heroism  when  opportunity  offered.  What  they  did 
for  King  and  country  I  hope  we  should  be  willing 
to  do  for  the  sake  of  Christ  if  the  necessity  arose ; 
we  should  be  swept  away  by  a  flood  of  enthusiasm 
which  would  render  us  for  the  time  careless  of  suf- 
fering and  danger;  we  should  be  buoyed  up  by  the 
consciousness  that  we  were  playing  the  principal  part 
in  a  great  drama,  and  bearing  witness  for  our  faith 
before  a  vast  multitude.  To  die  for  Him,  to  give  up 
one's  life,  seems  the  greatest  thing  of  all;  and  the 
martyr  was  often  carried  through  it  in  a  kind  of 
ecstasy. 

St.  Augustine  once  remarked :  ' '  Many  there  be  who 
will  die  for  Christ,  but  few  there  be  who  will  live 

413 


414  &he  Christian  Festivals 

for  Him."  The  obvious  reason  is  that  the  latter  is 
much  the  harder  task,  for  it  demands  this  virtue  of 
perseverance  which  we  are  considering.  Martyrdom 
is  one  tremendous  effort,  but  the  steady  work  goes 
on  for  many  years.  We  are  not  called  upon,  most 
of  us,  to  sacrifice  our  lives  for  Him,  but  to  devote  our 
lives  to  Him,  day  by  day  making  ourselves  gradu- 
ally more  like  Him,  doing  that  which  He  has  told 
us;  and  that  is  a  hard  thing  to  do.  Each  week  we 
come  to  our  church,  we  join  in  our  service,  we  feel 
the  splendour,  the  beauty,  the  glory  of  it  all,  and 
the  nearness  of  the  Christ  in  His  Sacrament,  and 
no  doubt  for  the  time  we  feel  that  for  His  sake  and 
in  His  Name  we  would  do  anything.  But  then  we 
go  back  to  daily  life,  and  gradually  the  height  and 
heat  of  our  enthusiasm  wane  somewhat;  we  live 
through  the  sordid  details  of  everyday  life,  and 
find  them  monotonous  and  irritating.  People  are 
irritating  too,  sometimes,  and  circumstances  are 
wearing;  the  daily  life  is  so  wearisome;  yet  duty 
lies  that  way.  To  remember  all  through  it,  all  the 
time,  that  we  must  be  living  for  Him  is  no  light 
task;  to  do  that  for  a  whole  life-time  is  a  greater 
feat  than  to  throw  a  life  away  in  a  moment  for  Him. 
And  yet  that  is  precisely  what  we  are  sent  here  to  do. 

„  This  that  we  call  a  life  is  only  one  day  in  our 
real  life ;  we  have  many  such  lives,  and  each  of  them 
is  just  like  one  stage  in  a  long  journey.  We  have 
to  spend  it  in  learning  certain  lessons.  We  are 
told:  "Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect" — a  hopeless  undertaking  if  we  were  con- 
fined to  seventy  years  of  life;  and  furthermore  no- 
body ever  has  even  that  seventy  years  of  life  in 
which  to  do  it;  for  all  through  the  early  part  of 


Perseverance  415 

our  life  we  are  learning  how  to  deal  with  things  on 
the  physical  plane,  while  towards  the  end  of  our  life 
the  body  is  not  so  strong.  In  truth  we  have  only  a 
few  years  of  each  incarnation  for  real  work  and 
learning.  We  are  all  well-intentioned,  but  we  have 
probably  often  been  careless  and  inefficient,  and 
have  not  kept  up  to  the  level  which  we  know  in  our 
hearts  to  be  within  our  power.  How  are  we  to 
attain  perfection?  The  idea  would  be  ridiculous  if 
there  were  no  other  life  but  this;  but  if  we  can 
have  as  much  time  as  we  need,  if  we  can  go  on  with 
the  work  life  after  life,  it  is  no  longer  ridiculous  to 
say  that  we  shall  at  last  attain  perfection. 

So  we  have  to  do  this  very  thing  which  we  have 
said  is  so  difficult  to  do.  That  is  our  duty;  we  are 
here  to  co-operate  in  God's  great  plan,  and  the  first 
step  in  that  is  to  make  ourselves  fit  to  help  in  it, 
because  if  we  are  to  be  fellow-workers  together  with 
God  we  must  have  within  us  something  of  the  power 
and  love  and  sympathy  of  God.  So  we  have  to 
develop  ourselves,  and  we  have  to  do  the  right  thing 
as  we  see  it,  day  after  day,  hour  after  hour,  year 
after  year,  however  slow  and  monotonous  it  may  seem 
to  be;  and  that  is  why  perseverance  is  so  important 
to  us. 

It  is  easy  enough  when  things  are  going  well  and 
smoothly;  but  there  is  hardly  a  day  in  which  some- 
thing does  not  happen  to  annoy  us  or  to  trouble  us. 
If  we  get  through  a  day  without  any  difficulties,  we 
may  consider  ourselves  fortunate.  We  ought  not 
to  let  these  things  worry  us;  we  know  that;  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact  they  often  do,  and  it  is  our  business 
to  face  facts.  We  must  get  ourselves  into  such  a 
condition  that  we  automatically  resist  that  impulse 


416  The  Christian  Festivals 

to  feel  annoyed,  however  natural  it  may  seem,  how- 
ever great  the  provocation  may  be. 

Think  once  more  of  those  who  went  to  the  war 
for  us;  think  of  the  awful,  the  perfectly  appalling 
conditions  through  which  those  men  went,  and  yet 
retained  their  steadiness.  How  was  it  done?  First, 
by  incessant  preparation  and  drill.  I  take  it  that  it 
is  practically  impossible  that  a  man  under  those  ter- 
rible conditions  should  feel  no  fear  at  all.  He  would 
be  scarcely  human  if  he  did  not;  but  the  glory  of 
it  is  that,  feeling  the  fear,  these  men  yet  behaved 
as  though  they  did  not  feel  it.  How  was  that  ?  The 
whole  thing  had  been  made  a  matter  of  routine.  The 
soldier  is  drilled  over  and  over  again  until  when 
he  hears  a  certain  word  of  command  he  obeys  with- 
out thinking.  The  whole  object  of  that  ceaseless 
drill  of  the  soldier  is  that  when  he  is  under  abnormal 
conditions,  when  he  is  inside  wholly  terrified,  he  will 
still  obey  those  orders,  because  he  is  used  to  obey; 
he  will  do  it  automatically. 

In  just  the  same  way  we  have  to  reach  a  stage 
where  unselfish  effort  is  automatic.  In  the  begin- 
ning self-preservation  must  naturally  be  the  first 
idea  to  come  up  in  a  soldier's  mind,  just  as  it  would 
in  any  of  us;  but  the  soldier  has  learned  to  con- 
quer that,  because  he  knows  he  is  there  for  another 
and  an  unselfish  purpose.  He  might  be  caught 
unawares,  he  might  not  have  time  to  think;  but  he 
has  been  drilled  until  his  movements  are  automatic; 
he  does  the  right  thing  automatically,  and  presently 
he  recovers  his  grasp  of  things,  and  then  comes  a 
sort  of  second  wind,  bringing  the  higher  thought: 
"It  does  not  matter  about  the  danger  for  me;  I 
have  a  certain  thing  to  do.  I  must  hold  this  place, 


Perseverance  417 

I  must  carry  out  this  order,  whatever  it  may  happen 
to  be." 

That  is  what  we  have  to  do;  we  have  to  practise 
this  business  of  unselfishness,  of  thinking  first  of 
other  people  and  working  for  them,  until  it  is 
automatic  with  us.  When  we  have  got  as  far  as  that, 
we  shall  find  that  many  things  which  hitherto  have 
troubled  and  upset  us,  now  trouble  us  no  more.  We 
must  act  as  a  doctor  does.  A  doctor  goes  perfectly 
coolly  into  the  most  appalling  dangers:  danger  of 
infection,  of  blood  poisoning,  danger  of  all  kinds 
from  which  a  man  might  well  shrink  with  horror; 
yet  so  ingrained  in  the  doctor  is  the  idea  of  saving 
life,  the  idea  that  all  suffering  that  comes  before 
him — however  loathsome,  however  dangerous  it  is — 
is  yet  a  case  with  which  he  has  to  deal,  a  case  which 
it  is  his  business  to  save,  that  he  never  thinks  of 
hesitating. 

Every  person  we  meet  is  an  opportunity,  an  oppor- 
tunity for  us  to  see  if  we  can  help  him  in  some 
way  or  other.  We  can  imagine  how  little  a  doctor 
cares  what  a  patient  says  to  him  in  his  delirium; 
the  man  may  be  insulting,  he  may  be  filthy,  he  may 
be  everything  that  is  unpleasant;  but  to  the  doctor 
he  is  merely  a  case — a  case  which  it  is  his  duty  to 
help.  That  must  be  our  attitude.  Never  mind  that 
the  people  to  be  helped  are  frequently  not  all  that 
they  ought  to  be;  that  fact  does  not  excuse  our 
being  what  we  ought  not  to  be;  it  does  not  excuse 
us  for  losing  our  temper  and  being  annoyed.  Let 
us  go  on  and  do  our  work  in  regard  to  them;  and 
our  work  is  to  be  sweet  and  gentle  and  kindly,  and 
to  watch  everywhere  for  an  opportunity  to  help. 

We  need  to  keep  up  our  enthusiasm;  we  need  to 
restore  our  strength  of  feeling;  that  is  one  of  the 


418  The  Christian  Festivals 

reasons  for  which  we  go  to  church.  That  is  the 
method  which  Christ  Himself  has  appointed  for  the 
helping  of  his  people.  He  raises  their  emotions; 
He  uplifts  them,  He  gives  to  them  His  very  Self 
in  the  most  holy  Sacrament.  Why?  Truly  to  help 
them  along  their  road  in  life,  but  far  more  to  help 
them  to  help  others;  to  keep  them  up  to  the  level 
where  they  can  radiate  love  and  enthusiasm,  and  so 
be  really  of  use  to  others.  That  is  why  we  should 
not  miss  church  services  if  we  can  help  it.  Blessed 
are  those  to  whom  comes  the  opportunity  of  daily 
communion  with  their  Lord;  their  lives  ought  to 
show  the  result  of  that  daily  communion.  They 
ought  to  differ  from  those  who  have  not  such  an 
advantage.  The  Christ  is  alleged  to  have  said: 
"Take  up  your  cross  and  follow  Me."  What  does 
He  mean  by  that?  "Take  up  your  trouble,  your 
difficulty,  whatever  it  is."  We  may  have  irritability 
as  our  cross,  we  may  have  sundry  and  various  little 
difficulties;  never  mind,  let  us  take  them  up  and 
follow  Him.  We  need  not  deny  the  existence  of 
our  cross,  or  refuse  to  face  it ;  let  us  take  it  up 
boldly  and  follow  Him.  Live  as  He  has  lived,  and 
then  at  the  end  we  shall  attain  freedom  and  safety 
from  all  these  troubles;  we  shall  achieve  that  at 
which  we  are  aiming.  We  shall  gain  that  life  with 
Him  which  is  the  real  expression  of  Him.  Take  up 
your  cross  and  follow  Him;  that  cross  becomes  a 
rosy  cross  of  light,  and  presently  it  is  surmounted 
by  the  crown,  the  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not 
away.  But  for  that  we  need  perseverance,  and  we 
need  strength  to  carry  it  day  by  day,  yea,  though  it 
be  through  a  long  life,  that  we  may  never  turn 
aside  from  following  Him, 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

GOOD  WORKS 

There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  misunderstanding 
in  various  sections  of  the  Christian  Church  with 
regard  to  the  necessity  of  active  work.  There  is  a 
large  section  of  Christianity  whose  teachers  tell  us 
that  we  have  only  to  believe  and  we  shall  be  saved, 
as  they  call  it.  They  usually  attach  a  very  unfor- 
tunate connotation  to  that  word  saved,  for  they 
make  it  mean  saved  from  an  everlasting  hell — an 
idea  which  is  an  utter  impossibility  and  a  blasphemy 
against  God  our  loving  Father.  There  never  is, 
there  never  was,  there  never  could  be,  the  slightest 
danger  of  any  human  being  encountering  so  awful  a 
fate  as  that.  It  is  true  that  suffering  always  follows 
upon  evil,  but  that  suffering  is  always  educative  and 
never  punitive.  We  have  to  learn  how  we  should 
live;  but  there  are  plenty  of  opportunities  of  learn- 
ing that.  There  have  been  in  all  religions  and  in 
all  ages  of  the  world  Teachers  to  tell  people  how 
they  ought  to  live,  but  the  less  evolved  souls  are 
often  unable  or  unwilling  to  adopt  that  teaching, 
because  it  usually  imposes  upon  them  a  good  deal 
of  self-control  and  self-restraint  of  their  lower  pas- 
sions and  feelings,  which  they  do  not  like.  They 
are  not  sure,  deep  down  within  themselves,  that 
the  teaching  is  true;  consequently  they  make  mis- 
takes, they  commit  what  is  called  sin,  they  do  things 
which  should  not  be  done,  and  under  the  inevitable 
law  of  cause  and  effect  evil  brings  suffering  to  them 
sooner  or  later.  That  suffering  may  sometimes  be 

419 


420  The  Christian  Festivals 

terrible.  Eternal  of  course  it  could  never  be,  be- 
cause no  man's  action  is  eternal,  and  an  infinite 
result  cannot  flow  from  a  finite  cause;  but  it  is  true 
that  a  man  may  save  himself  from  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  and  sorrow  if  he  is  willing  to  use  his  com- 
mon sense  and  to  live  in  accordance  with  the  great 
scheme  which  God  has  laid  out  for  us. 

To  be  saved  means  really  to  be  on  the  right  side 
when  a  certain  division  of  the  human  race  takes 
place  in  the  future — a  division  about  which  there  has 
been  the  most  astonishing  misunderstanding;  it  has 
been  described  as  the  separation  between  the  sheep 
and  the  goats,  the  saved  and  the  lost.  There  can- 
not be  any  such  idea  as  "the  lost"  in  the  whole  of 
God's  world,  because  God  intends  us  all  to  evolve; 
and  evolve  we  most  certainly  shall.  There  is  no 
question  about  that;  the  question  is  whether  we 
shall  choose  to  go  quietly  and  willingly  along  the 
path  of  evolution,  or  whether  we  shall  give  our- 
selves and  other  people  a  great  deal  of  trouble  by 
moving  restively  and  resisting  the  divine  guidance. 

That  is  the  only  meaning  of  salvation — that  a  man 
is  sure  to  come  out  on  the  right  side  in  that  future 
judgment  or  decision — a  judgment  which  is  not  in 
the  least  a  condemnation  of  him,  but  simply  a  deci- 
sion as  to  whether  he  is  or  is  not  ready  to  go  on  in 
the  higher  and  more  evolved  world.  If  he  is  not, 
he  drops  out  and  goes  on  with  the  next  wave  of 
evolution.  There  is  no  question  of  eternal  loss;  it 
is  like  the  case  of  a  child  at  school  who  is  not  up 
to  the  level  of  his  standard,  and  is  therefore 
unable  to  go  on  to  a  higher  class  with  his 
comrades,  but  has  to  wait  and  do  the  same  year's 
work  over  again.  That  is  all  that  is  meant  by 


Good  Works  421 

being  condemned.  The  best  translation  would  be 
that  a  decision  is  made  against  the  man — a  decision 
that  he  is  not  strong  enough  to  go  on. 

It  is  written:  " Believe  and  you  shall  be  saved." 
"We  quite  agree,  but  it  must  be  an  efficient  belief — 
a  belief  that  leads  us  somewhere,  that  makes  us  do 
something — for  we  have  the  authority  of  the  bible 
for  the  statement  that  faith  without  works  is  dead. 
We  cannot  pretend  that  a  man  truly  believes  some- 
thing if  he  acts  as  though  that  thing  were  not  so; 
in  that  case  it  is  clear  that  he  does  not  fully  believe. 
When  we  talk  about  belief,  we  do  not  mean  a  vague 
suspicion  that  a  thing  may  be  so;  we  mean  an  abso- 
lute certainty  of  it — just  the  same  certainty  as  we 
have  that  fire  will  burn  us,  a  certainty  which  makes 
us  take  particularly  good  care  not  to  put  our  hands 
in  the  fire,  and  not  to  take  hold  of  something  which 
is  red-hot.  It  is  not  because  we  expect  God  to 
punish  us  if  we  do,  but  because  we  know,  as  the 
inevitable  result  of  His  law,  that  if  we  take  hold  of 
something  which  is  too  hot  we  shall  suffer  by  the 
too  rapid  transmission  of  heat  from  that  object  to 
our  hands.  It  is  not  a  question  of  punishment;  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  common  sense  and  obedience  to  law. 
If  that  fact  can  be  got  into  our  heads,  we  shall  save 
ourselves  much  trouble. 

If  faith  is  to  save  us  from  unpleasant  consequences, 
it  must  be  a  faith  which  leads  to  action.  Christ 
remarked  that  not  everyone  who  called  Him  "Lord" 
would  necessarily  attain  the  goal.  "Why  call  ye  Me 
Lord,  Lord,"  He  asks,  "and  do  not  the  things  that 
I  say?"  He  demands  some  proof  that  we  recognize 
Him  as  the  Lord,  the  Teacher.  He  says:  "Do  the 
things  that  I  tell  you;  it  is  useless  to  profess  belief 


422  The  Christian  Festivals 

if  you  do  not  show  your  belief  in  definite  work." 
Lip-service  does  not  count  at  all  in  cases  of  this  sort. 
There  are  plenty  of  instances  of  that.  In  the  bible 
the  most  striking  of  all  is  one  I  have  often  quoted 
before — the  account  which  the  Lord  Himself  gives 
of  this  so-called  day  of  judgment,  of  the  day  when 
He  will  decide  who  is  fit  to  go  on  to  that  higher  level 
which  He  describes  as  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It 
is  not  a  place  in  space,  a  place  where  men  will  for 
ever  sit  upon  clouds,  carrying  harps  and  singing. 
Heaven  is  a  state  of  consciousness,  a  state  into  which 
we  can  pass  only  when  we  have  sufficiently  developed 
ourselves  to  be  able  to  enter  into  it  and  enjoy  it. 

So  He  says  of  the*  higher  states  which  lie  in  front 
of  men:  "You  who  are  fit  for  them,  come;  ye  who 
are  sufficiently  blessed  of  My  Father*'  (which  means 
those  in  whom  the  Third  Outpouring  is  sufficiently 
unfolded)  "come  and  inherit  th\s  fuller  life.  The 
rest  of  you  cannot  yet  do  that,  because  you  are  not 
fit  for  it.  Depart  from  Me,  for  you  still  work 
iniquity;  come  up  for  examination  again  when  you 
are  better  prepared. "  To  feel  good  is  not  sufficient. 
A  man  must  do  good  if  he  wishes  to  succeed;  to  feel 
good  and  happy  is  at  least  always  better  than  to 
feel  miserable,  but  it  is  not  enough  that  a  man  should 
be  self-satisfied.  He  must  definitely  do  good. 

How  can  we  define  the  doing  of  good  works?  At 
least  it  always  means  helping  others  in  some  way; 
it  is  not  only  charity,  not  only  the  distribution  of 
goods  to  the  poor,  however  grand  and  noble  a  thing 
that  may  be.  There  are  varieties  of  good  works 
which  are  necessary  to  the  man  who  wishes  to  make 
real  progress.  The  good  work  specially  put  before 
us  in  the  epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians  is 


Good  Works  423 

that  we  should  show  love.  And  there  is  a  collect 
which  prays :  ' l  That  we,  loving  Thee  above  all  things, 
may  continually  be  given  to  all  good  works."  Truly 
we  must  feel  love  to  God,  but  our  love  to  God  must 
show  itself  in  love  for  our  fellow-men — in  love  for 
God  in  man,  because  God,  the  divine  spark,  is  in 
everyone,  and  when  we  love  a  human  being,  it  is  the 
God  in  him  that  we  love.  When  we  love  we  ideate ; 
we  think  of  the  person  as  grander  far  in  many  ways 
than  others  can  see  him.  But  we  are  not  idealizing 
him  one  whit  beyond  his  potentiality.  It  is  in  that 
human  being  to  be  just  as  fine,  just  as  good  in  every 
way  as  we  think  him  to  be.  Perhaps  there  is  not 
yet  sufficient  development  in  that  soul  to  show  forth 
the  whole  of  that  possibility  all  the  time;  but  the 
divine  power  and  the  divine  goodness  are  there,  and 
if  we  idealize  the  man,-  we  are  simply  looking  ahead 
a  little  to  what  he  will  be,  rather  than  confining 
ourselves  to  what  he  is  at  the  moment. 

So  that  is  a  good  work  that  we  must  do  if  we 
are  to  fulfil  His  command.  We  must  love  God,  and 
we  must  show  our  love  in  kindly  action  towards  our 
fellow-men.  Besides  the  external  good  works  (to 
which  the  name  of  charity  is  commonly  given)  we 
must  always  do  the  interior  good  work  which  was  put 
before  us  in  the  epistle,  which  tells  us  that  we  must 
walk  worthy  of  our  vocation.  We  who  have  come  to 
the  light  have  a  singular  advantage,  but  every  such 
advantage  brings  us  a  greater  responsibility.  If 
we  know  a  little  more  of  the  truth  of  Christ  than 
others  know,  then  we  have  a  greater  responsibility. 
To  whom  much  is  given,  from  him  much  shall  be 
expected;  so  if  we  know  more,  we  must  show  it  by 
living  a  life  higher  and  nearer  to  the  Christ  than 


424  The  Christian  Festivals 

that  which  is  lived  by  the  man  who  as  yet  is  igno- 
rant. We  have  learnt  not  merely  that  we  may  know 
in  the  abstract,  not  merely  that  we  may  have  in  our 
minds  so  much  of  knowledge;  but  that  we  may  put 
that  knowledge  into  practice,  that  we  may  live  as 
Christ  would  have  us  live. 

The  words  of  that  epistle  are  admirable;  we  can- 
not think  of  them  too  often,  or  follow  too  closely 
their  direction  that  we  should  show  our  love  by 
forbearing  one  another  in  love,  and  keep  the  unity 
of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  Why  is  it  that 
unity  is  so  emphatically  eulogized?  Because  that 
is  the  particular  piece  of  progress  which  is  put  be- 
fore us;  that  is  the  great  step  that  we  all  ought  to 
be  trying  to  take.  We  come  forth  from  God,  and 
God  is  one;  the  One  has  become  many;  there  has 
been  a  vast  divergence,  in  order  that  those  Who 
represent  the  One,  that  Mighty  One,  may  bring 
back  into  Him  the  fruit  of  many  different  experi- 
ences, so  that  there  may  be  a  greater  fullness,  a  more 
perfect  fruit  of  evolution.  But  having  become  many 
in  order  that  we  may  develop  into  strong  and  power- 
ful centres,  we  have  now  to  learn  to  become  one 
again,  because  He  from  Whom  we  came  and  to  Whom 
we  are  to  return,  is  one  God — in  Three  Persons, 
truly,  and  manifesting  through  many  glorious 
Spirits,  through  all  kinds  of  different  forms — the 
human  form  among  others — but  yet  fundamentally 
One;  so  to  realize  Him,  and  to  gain  strength  and 
power  from  Him,  we  must  draw  nearer  and  nearer 
to  unity  ourselves. 

So  we  are  told  to  strive  for  that  unity.  It  is  the 
most  important  thing  put  before  us,  and  yet  one 
of  the  most  difficult.  Constantly  we  are  squabbling 


Good  Works  425 

and  bickering  among  ourselves  because  we  differ; 
and  how  little  are  the  things  about  which  we 
squabble,  how  unimportant  when  we  come  to  think 
of  it.  People  will  make  a  great  fuss  and  a  great 
deal  of  trouble  to  get  exactly  their  own  way  in 
some  quite  small  matter,  though  it  does  not  matter 
in  the  least  really  whether  they  succeed  or  not.  What 
does  matter  a  thousand  times  more  is  to  keep  the 
unity,  the  sense  of  love  and  harmony;  and  not  to 
break  up  that  sense  for  the  sake  of  some  small 
thing  which  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  at  all. 
The  higher  life,  the  heavenly  life,  the  life  of  the 
Christ  is  always  a  life  of  unity,  and  the  nearer  we 
come  to  a  definite  unity  among  ourselves,  the  nearer 
we  shall  come  to  Him,  Who  prayed  to  His  Father 
that  we  might  all  be  one  in  Him,  even  as  He  is  one 
with  the  Father. 

Let  us  then  add  to  the  outer  good  work  in  the 
world  (which  I  am  sure  all  are  doing  or  trying  to 
do  as  best  they  can)  that  inner  good  work  of  gain- 
ing and  maintaining  unity  with  our  brethren.  Chris- 
tianity ought  to  be  a  real  bond.  Our  hand  given  to 
a  fellow-Christian  should  be  a  sure  pledge  of  real 
brotherhood  to  him.  We  should  always  stand  ready 
to  help  him  in  his  need,  and  assuredly  we  should 
defend  his  good  name  in  his  absence  just  as  we 
would  in  his  presence.  All  these  things  we  should 
do  if  our  brotherhood  is  true,  so  that  men  may  say 
of  us,  as  they  used  to  say  in  the  ages  of  the  primi- 
tive Church:  ''See  how  these  Christians  love  one 
another."  That  was  the  mark  of  the  Christian  in 
those  early  days,  when  they  were  few.  Would  that 
it  were  equally  the  mark  of  the  Christian  in  these 
days,  when  they  are  comparatively  many.  "Sirs, 
ye  are  brethren;  then  let  brotherly  love  continue." 


CHAPTEE  XXVII 
GOD  AS  LIGHT 

The  sun  has  been  taken  throughout  the  ages  as 
the  symbol  of  the  Deity.  Many  people  have  talked 
a  great  deal  of  nonsense  about  sun-worshippers,  and 
have  spoken  of  them  as  idolaters.  The  whole  idea 
of  what  we  mean  by  an  idolater  is  entirely  foreign 
to  any  of  those  Oriental  religions.  I  doubt  very 
much  whether  there  has  ever  been  such  a  thing  as 
an  idolater  in  this  world.  Many  of  the  more  extreme 
protestants  among  the  Christians  accuse  their 
brethren  of  idolatry  because  they  use  the  crucifix, 
because  they  have  images  of  Our  Lady  and  of 
various  saints,  but  I  think  that  not  the  most  ignorant 
of  peasants  among  Catholics  ever  supposed  those 
pieces  of  wood  and  stone  to  be  the  saints.  They 
have  understood  them  to  be  symbols  of  them — repre- 
sentations of  them  to  shew  us,  so  far  as  can  be  done, 
what  manner  of  people  these  great  Ones  were,  and 
to  arouse  interest  and  reverence  for  them.  No  one 
has  ever  worshipped  any  image ;  they  have  taken 
images  always  as  symbols  of  that  which  lies  behind. 

So,  surely,  with  the  sun.  The  Parsees,  the  Zoroas- 
trians  have  been  called  sun- worshippers,  but  if  we 
ask  a  Zoroastrian  he  tells  us  at  once:  "Of  course 
it  is  not  the  sun  we  worship ;  that  is  the  physical 
representation  of  a  mighty  Spirit,  a  divine  Power 
behind;  it  is  that  and  that  alone  which  we  worship." 

The  sun  is  a  very  fit  and  beautiful  symbol  of  the 
Deity.  Think  how  he  pours  forth  light  for  ever; 
how  the  sun  is  always  shining.  It  is  said  in  our 

426 


God  as  Light  427 

scripture  that  God  makes  His  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  the  good,  and  sends  His  rain  on  the  just 
and  on  the  unjust;  He  pours  His  sunshine  upon  all 
without  any  difference  or  strength,  and  that  great 
light  of  His  is  always  shining.  We  find  half  our 
day,  half  our  twenty-four  hours  dark;  but  that  is 
because  we  are  in  our  own  shadow,  not  because  the 
sun  is  not  shining.  Sometimes  there  are  clouds  and 
storms,  but,  as  I  have  said  before,  those  also  are 
earth-born,  and  the  sun  shines  on  for  ever.  We 
have  only  to  rise  above  the  earthly  clouds,  or  to  pass 
out  of  the  shadow  of  the  earth,  and  we  find  our 
sun  eternal.  So  it  is  a  fine  symbol  of  the  divine 
Power,  and  it  is  very  true  that  in  Him  there  is  no 
darkness  at  all. 

The  light  always  remains  pure.  Man  cannot  soil 
or  influence  that  light.  If  an  outpouring  of  water 
passes  through  a  pipe  which  is  foul,  it  becomes 
dirty  water.  If  the  sun  shines  through  a  dirty  pane 
the  light  is  not  foul;  it  remains  the  same  light,  and 
even  if  we  use  coloured  glass  we  do  not  change  the 
light;  it  means  only  that  that  kind  of  glass  will  let 
through  only  a  part  and  not  the  whole  of  it.  Yet 
even  so,  think  how  lovely  that  is;  we  can  dis- 
tinguish the  especial  beauty  of  that  part  the  better 
because  for  the  moment  the  other  parts  are  kept 
aside,  away  from  our  view.  We  must  sometimes  see 
less  than  the  whole,  in  order  that  we  may  know  what 
splendour,  what  beauty  is  included  in  that  whole. 

Wonderful  as  that  light  is,  we  poor  human  beings 
may  actually  help  it,  so  to  speak,  in  its  work.  We 
can  reflect  this  glorious  sunlight  into  dark  corners 
which  otherwise  it  could  not  penetrate;  for  the  light 
moves  only  in  straight  lines,  so  toy  purely  human 


428  The  Christian  Festivals 

means,  by  mirrors  and  by  reflectors,  we  can  send  light 
to  those  from  whom  otherwise  it  would  be  hidden. 
Men  hide  themselves  in  caves  and  shelters  and  cellars 
into  which  the  divine  sunlight  itself  cannot  pene- 
trate; but  we  can  reflect  it  into  those  places,  and  so, 
poor  and  small  as  we  are  and  comparatively  of  no 
account,  we  can  yet  help  that  mighty  divine  Power 
to  make  itself  manifest  to  men  who  otherwise  would 
not  see  it,  to  whom  its  awful  puritj^  would  make  no 
appeal.  By  reflecting  it,  by  giving  perhaps  only 
part  of  it,  and  reflecting  only  one  colour  of  it,  we 
can  make  it  visible  to  those  who  otherwise  would 
not  see. 

There  is  another  thing  also  which  we  should  re- 
member. We  spend  much  of  our  lives  in  what  is 
called  artificial  light,  but  those  who  know  anything 
of  science  are  aware  that  there  is  in  reality  no 
such  thing  as  artificial  light,  for  all  light  is  only 
transmuted  sunlight.  We  burn  our  coal,  we  make 
our  power;  what  is  coal  but  the  plants  of  long  ago 
that  have  stored  up  light  in  the  form  of  energy 
which  they  drew  in  millions  of  years  ago,  and  now 
they  give  out  again?  All  light  is  only  a  form  of 
energy,  and  all  energy  in  this  system  comes  from 
the  sun,  just  as  all  life  comes  from  Him  Who  stands 
behind  the  sun,  the  Solar  Logos  or  Deity. 

We  see  in  how  many  ways  this  symbol  of  God  as 
Light  is  really  beautiful,  really  something  that  is 
well  worth  careful  consideration.  We,  therefore,  if 
we  would  be  fellow-workers  together  with  God, 
which  is  surely  the  greatest  honour  and  the  greatest 
blessing  that  can  come  to  mortal  man,  must  also  be 
lights,  however  comparatively  feeble  our  light  may 
be.  "Let  the  lower  lights  be  burning,"  for  the 


God  as  Light  429 

lower  lights  have  their  own  work  to  do — work  which 
the  greater  lights  cannot  do  without  some  entire 
change  of  their  nature  and  their  power;  so  everyone 
has  his  work  to  do;  he  must  be  a  light.  God  is  not 
only  the  external  light  and  the  glory  of  the  universe ; 
He  is  the  indwelling  light — the  light  within  us.  So 
let  our  light  swell  and  grow  until  it  becomes  one 
with  the  infinite  Light. 

St.  John,  in  his  First  Epistle  General,  speaks 
clearly  as  to  the  effect  of  that  Light.  ''If  we 
say  that  we  have  fellowship  with  Him,  and  yet 
we  walk  in  darkness,  the  truth  is  not.  in  us."  We 
may  tell  for  ourselves  at  once  whether  we  are  open- 
ing our  hearts  to  the  divine  Light,  because  if  that 
be  the  case  we  shall  be  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the 
light.  If  we  suffer  from  clouds  of  depression,  if 
our  attitude  is  pessimistic,  if  we  feel  ourselves  over- 
whelmed by  what  happens  to  us,  then  we  are  not 
yet  in  the  glorious  sunlight  of  His  life;  then  we 
must  come  out  of  these  caves  of  darkness,  these 
man-made  shelters  that  hide  us  from  God's  glorious 
sunlight;  come  out  and  walk  with  Him  in  the  light. 
"These  things  have  I  written  unto  you  that  your 
joy  may  be  full."  Joy  is  the  test  of  true  belief. 
It  is  the  good  and  faithful  servant  who  enters  into 
the  joy  of  his  Lord ;  but  remember  what  the  joy  of 
the  Lord  is.  It  is  no  vague  heaven  of  feasting  and 
of  singing ;  for  what  is  it  that  Christ  our  Lord  does  ? 
All  the  while  He  pours  Himself  out  in  sacrifice  for 
us;  it  was  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  that  He 
descended  into  matter,  and  was  born  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  the  Virgin  Mary.  Those  who  enter  into 
the  joy  of  the  Lord  must  take  part  in  the  work  of 
the  Lord,  for  it  is  that  work  that  is  His  joy.  In 


430  The  Christian  Festivals 

the  Greek  religion  the  Logos  is  symbolized  under  the 
name  of  Bacchus;  the  infant  Bacchus  has  His  play- 
things, and  through  His  play  the  worlds  come  into 
being.  The  list  of  His  toys  is  of  extreme  interest, 
for  we  find  Him  using  dice  which  are  the  five  pla- 
tonic  solids,  a  top  which  is  the  whirling  atom,  a 
ball  which  represents  the  earth,  and  a  mirror  whieli 
is  the  symbol  of  the  astral  light.  It  is  these  with 
which  He  plays,  into  which  He  descends,  and  the 
joy  of  the  Lord  is  the  joy  of  sacrifice.  So  it  is  into 
that  joy  of  sacrifice  that  all  of  us  must  try  to 
enter;  but  so  long  as  we  think  of  that  sacrifice  as 
suffering,  we  have  not  entered  into  the  true  joy  of 
the  Lord.  When  sacrifice  is  the  only  way  of  living 
that  is  possible  for  us,  when  that  is  our  truest  and 
our  greatest  joy,  then  indeed  are  we  one  with  Him; 
then  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the  light. 

The  epistle  of  St.  John,  in  which  is  to  be  found 
the  passage  upon  which  I  have  been  commenting,  has 
an  especial  characteristic  which  is  worthy  of  our 
careful  attention  because  it  presents  a  close  analogy 
to  our  own  position  at  the  present  day,  and  shows 
that  the  witness  of  the  Church  comes  down  through 
the  ages,  and  that  we  tell  you  to-day  exactly  what 
the  apostle  told  his  people  two  thousand  years  ago. 
Notice  the  decided  stand  which  St.  John  takes.  He 
says  quite  clearly:  "You  must  understand  that  I  am 
talking  about  what  I  myself  have  seen  and  know.  I 
speak  to  you  of  the  things  which  mine  eyes  have 
seen  and  my  hands  have  handled,  of  the  word  of 
life.  I  am  not  telling  you  something  which  is  a 
mere  matter  of  hearsay;  I  have  seen  it  and  I  know 
it."  That  is  exactly  what  we  tell  you  in  this  Church 
to-day,  We  are  not  speaking  merely  on  the  autho- 


God  as  Light  431 

rity  of  any  sacred  scripture,  though  we  often  quote 
ancient  scripture  in  support  of  what  we  say;  we 
are  not  depending  upon  information  handed  down 
to  us  by  tradition,  though  that  often  confirms  our 
teaching;  we  are  telling  you  of  things  with  which 
many  of  us  have  experimented,  things  of  which  we 
have  had  experience  again  and  again,  so  that  we  do 
know  that  whereof  we  speak  and  we  give  you 
direct  personal  testimony — which  is  more  than  you 
will  get  from  most  religious  instructors! 

But  we  do  not  therefore  expect  any  one  to  accept 
all  that  we  say  without  further  enquiry.  We  leave 
men  perfectly  free  in  this  Church  to  believe  what- 
ever commends  itself  to  their  own  reason  and  com- 
mon sense;  but  the  fact  that  we  leave  them  per- 
fectly free  does  not  mean  that  we  have  no  know- 
ledge and  no  convictions  of  our  own.  On  the  con- 
trary, some  of  us  do  know  quite  a  good  deal  about 
these  things;  we  know  it  as  the  result  of  many  years 
of  patient  and  careful  investigation,  along  lines  pre- 
cisely similar  to  those  which  scientific  men.  adopt  in 
studying  chemistry  or  astronomy  or  any  other 
subject. 

For  a  long  time  it  seems  to  have  been  thought 
that  in  this  world  of  ours  there  were  certain  matters 
which  must  be  left  to  the  province  of  religion;  that 
they  were  purely  matters  of  faith,  that  no  one  could 
know  anything  definite  about  them,  and  that  there- 
fore some  people  believed  one  thing  and  some  an- 
other. That  has  been  an  unfortunate  thing  for  the 
world.  There  is  no  reason  why  people  should  not 
investigate  for  themselves  these  matters  which  are 
supposed  to  be  appropriate  to  religion,  any  more 
than  there  is  any  reason  why  they  should  not  inves- 


432  &he  Christian  Festivals 

tigate  geology,  chemistry  or  any  other  science.  It  is 
in  no  way  more  presumptuous  or  irreverent  to  en- 
quire into  the  working  of  God's  laws  on  the  astral 
plane  than  on  the"  physical. 

For  example,  there  is  the  whole  vast  question  of 
the  life  after  death.  It  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that 
we  cannot  obtain  any  information  about  that.  There 
is  plenty  of  information  to  be  had  about  it  for  any- 
body who  will  take  the  trouble  to  look  for  it.  Of 
course  there  are  conditions  attached  to  psychic  re- 
search, exactly  as  there  are  conditions  attached  to 
the  study  of  electricity.  If  we  want  to  experiment 
in  electricity  we  must  obtain  the  machinery  which 
will  generate  it,  we  must  have  the  wires  which  will 
conduct  it,  and  in  various  ways  we  must  provide  our- 
selves with  the  necessary  plant  and  supplies.  It  is 
exactly  the  same  if  we  want  to  study  matters  of 
the  higher  world.  We  cannot  deal  with  them  with 
the  same  machinery  which  we  should  apply  to  chemis- 
try or  geology;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  they 
cannot  be  studied,  if  we  will  take  the  trouble  to 
learn  and  apply  the  appropriate  methods. 

Some  of  us  have  done  that.  I  myself  have  spent 
half  a  century  over  these  subjects,  experimenting  in 
various  ways  for  myself  and  through  others,  and 
collecting  masses  of  evidence;  and  I  think  one  may 
fairly  claim  that  at  the  end  of  so  long  an  apprentice- 
ship as  that,  one  begins  to  know  something  about 
it.  It  is  quite  possible  for  any  man  who  has  the 
time,  the  money  and  the  patience  to  do  exactly  what 
I  did  to  obtain  evidence  and  to  experiment  for  him- 
self. Meantime,  we  are  quite  ready  to  put  the  re- 
sult of  our  enquiries  and  investigations  before  our 
people. 


God  as  Light  433 

The  message  which  we  bring  is  exactly  that  which 
St.  John  brought.  We  have  seen  something  of  those 
higher  splendours,  and  we  know  with  utter  certainty 
that  there  is  a  God  of  Light  and  Power,  and  we 
see  how  He  works  down  here  through  His  instru- 
ments, and  through  the  matter  which  is  a  manifes- 
tation of  Him.  Through  all  the  ages  there  has  been 
continued  testimony.  There  have  always  been 
those  who  knew,  and  there  always  will  be.  Not  every 
one  of  us  can  say,  "I  know,"  although  there  are 
far  more  who  can  say  it  than  is  generally  supposed, 
for  many  men  have  had  their  own  experiences, 
some  of  one  kind,  some  of  another,  so  that  they  are 
quite  certain  inside.  But  those  who  take  the  trouble 
to  train  their  higher  faculties  know  now,  just  as 
others  knew  thousands  of  years  ago.  The  testimony 
of  the  great  Catholic  Church  is  consistent  and 
continual. 

Christians  recognize  St.  John  as  one  of  the  great- 
est of  their  apostles,  but  it  is  curious  that  in  spite 
of  that  no  one  seems  actually  to  believe  him — that 
is  if  we  are  to  go  by  the  general  attitude  of  the 
Christian  in  the  present  day,  the  general  tone  of 
his  prayer-book  and  his  religious  writings  altogether. 
One  great  fact  emerges  from  St.  John's  enquiry  into 
these  matters.  He  claims  to  know  at  first  hand,  and 
he  declares  that  God  is  Light,  and  that  in  Him 
there  is  no  darkness  at  all.  If  only  Christians  had 
believed  him,  had  accepted  his  statement  with  its 
inevitable  corollaries,  we  should  have  avoided  a  vast 
amount  of  totally  unnecessary  trouble  and  sorrow. 
Apparently  Christians  cannot  believe  him;  they  can- 
not believe  the  assertions  of  Christ  Himself;  they 
must  go  back  to  the  old  terrorism  of  the  religion 


434  The  Christian  Festivals 

of  the  early  Jews,  who  worshipped  a  tribal  deity  of 
their  own,  whom  they  held  to  be  excessively  cruel, 
revengeful,  jealous  and  in  various  ways  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  loving  Father  Whom  Christ  con- 
sistently put  before  His  people.  If  only  those  who 
call  themselves  Christians  would  follow  Christ  and 
His  apostles,  and  leave  the  Jewish  religion  alone,  we 
should  get  on  much  better. 

Any  one  who  can  accept  St.  John's  plain  state- 
ment that  God  is  Light  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness 
at  all,  will  find  that  it  changes  everything,  that  it 
is  of  the  most  supreme  importance,  that  it  is  the 
Raving  fact  that  makes  all  things  clear  to  us,  as  soon 
as  we  grasp  it.  Some  may  say:  "When  we  look 
round  us  in  the  world,  we  do  not  see  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  God  is  a  loving  Father,  that  He  is  Light, 
and  in  Him  there  is  no  darkness.  If  that  be  so  how 
came  this  awful  war?  Think  of  the  appalling  misery 
which  it  has  meant  to  millions  of  people;  how  can 
that  be  if  there  is  no  darkness?" 

Of  course  the  evidence  cannot  ibe  seen,  so  long 
as  we  are  looking  only  at  a  small  part  of  the  thing. 
Imagine  a  number  of  ants  crawling  about  on  the 
wrong  side  of  some  magnificent  piece  of  tapestry, 
and  examining  the  ends  which  hang  down  at  the 
back  of  it  and  arguing  among  themselves  as  to 
whether  there  could  be  any  design  in  it.  "Some 
colours  here  and  some  there,"  they  might  say,  "and 
no  apparent  sense  or  reason  in  it  all."  We  are  just 
about  in  the  same  position  to  judge  of  what  is  really 
being  done  as  those  ants  would  be  to  judge  the 
design  of  that  tapestry.  Some  intelligent  ant  by 
chance  or  by  extra  development  might  learn  to  climb 
round  to  the  other  side.  Then  he  would  come  back 


God  as  Light  435 

and  report  to  the  others:  "There  is  a  real  pattern 
to  it  all;  there  is  some  reason  in  it,  but  you  can  see 
only  one  side,  and  that  the  under  side.  All  the 
important  part  you  do  not  see  at  all."  That  is 
exactly  the  position  in  which  men  are  who  argue 
about  the  power  and  love  of  God  when  they  see 
only  this  physical-plane  side  of  things.  They  see 
only  what  happens  to  the  bodies  of  men,  the  lowest 
part  of  them.  If  they  could  climb  to  the  other  side 
of  the  tapestry  and  see  the  pattern,  if  they  could 
raise  their  consciousness  to  the  higher  level  and  see 
what  is  happening  to  the  souls  of  men  as  a  conse- 
quence of  all  this,  they  would  comprehend  the  real 
plan  and  scheme  of  the  whole  business,  and  then  they 
would  understand  that  verily  God  is  Light  and  in 
Him  there  is  no  darkness  at  all.  If  we  cannot  al- 
ways see  evidence  of  it  down  here,  it  is  because  we 
are  seeing  not  even  half,  not  a  tenth  of  the  working 
of  the  machine;  we  have  no  grasp  whatever  of  the 
world  as  a  whole  while  we  examine  it  merely  from 
this  lower  side.  We  must  get  above  it  and  look  down 
on  it  and  see  it  altogether. 

Take  an  analogy  from  the  great  war.  We  can 
imagine  how  little  of  what  was  being  done  in  one 
of  those  battles  a  single  private  soldier  would  know 
while  he  was  fighting  in  one  corner  of  the  battle- 
field. He  had  his  orders,  and  he  carried  them  out 
nobly,  but  he  knew  little  of  the  plan  of  the  general 
who  had  the  whole  affair  in  his  mind.  There  might 
be  terrible  suffering,  there  might  even  be  a  partial 
defeat  and  retirement  in  one  part  of  the  field,  in 
order  that  time  might  be  gained  to  obtain  a  real  vic- 
tory in  some  other  point  of  the  same  great  battle. 
We  cannot  tell  by  seeing  a  small  part;  but  if  we  get 


436  The  Christian  Festivals 

up  above  ,and  look  down,  we  can  see — not  indeed  the 
whole,  but — quite  enough  to  make  us  certain  that 
there  is  a  plan,  that  the  plan  is  a  noble  and  a  true 
plan,  and  that  it  is  succeeding  and  not  failing. 

That  is  the  message  of  those  who  are  able,  after 
long  practice  and  work,  to  raise  their  consciousness 
so  that  they  can  look  down  on  it  all  from  above  and 
take  a  broader  view  than  can  be  had  down  here. 
Once  more  we  are  repeating  the  statement  of  St. 
John,  and  we  are  repeating  it  on  the  same  grounds 
— that  we  have  ourselves  seen  the  working  of  the 
scheme  sufficiently  to  be  able  to  affirm  exactly  what 
St.  John  affirmed  two  thousand  years  ago,  that  God 
is  Light,  The  Act  of  Faith  in  the  Office  of  Prime, 
which  I  have  already  quoted,  conveys  the  idea : 

"We  believe  that  God  is  Love  and  Power  and 
Truth  and  Light;  that  perfect  justice  rules  the 
world:  that  all  His  sons  shall  one  day  reach  His 
Feet,  however  far  they  stray.  We  hold  the  Father- 
hood of  God.  the  Brotherhood  of  man;  we  know  that 
we  do  serve  Him  best  when  best  we  serve  our  brother 
man.  So  shall  His  blessing  rest  on  us,  and  peace  for 
evermore. ' ' 

We  do  not  tell  men,  as  do  some  other  Christian 
denominations,  that  they  will  have  an  unpleasant 
and  sulphureous  future  if  they  do  not  believe  what 
we  say;  it  is  for  them  to  take  our  evidence  or  leave 
it;  but  we  do  claim  that  it  is  evidence,  and  that 
every  sensible  man  ought  to  take  it  into  account.  All 
who  claim  to  have  penetrated  to  higher  levels  and 
learned  to  see  for  themselves  agree  in  telling  us  that 
there  is  an  orderly  scheme,  which  is  moving  on  to  a 
consummation  of  final  good  for  all. 


God  as  Light  437 

From  that  knowledge  follow  many  things.  That 
being  so,  the  best  of  everything,  and  the  best  in 
everything,  is  the  nearest  to  the  truth  in  it;  so  when 
anything  happens  that  seems  to  us  to  cause  sorrow 
and  evil,  we  should  look  and  see  whether  there  is 
not  a  good  side  to  it.  Look  for  the  best  always;  for 
we  shall  always  find  that  somewhere  there  is  a  best. 
Look  for  the  good  points,  not  only  in  everything,  but 
in  everybody;  'because  in  looking  for  the  good  we  get 
nearer  to  the  reality.  Let  us  count  our  blessings 
instead  of  all  the  time  grumbling  and  looking  round 
for  something  with  which  we  can  find  fault.  If  we 
look  for  the  good  we  shall  be  surprised  to  see  how 
much  there  is  of  it.  If  we  accept  the  idea  that  Grod 
is  light,  and  trust  Him,  follow  Him,  obey  Him,  we 
shall  soon  find  evidence  accruing  to  show  that  we 
are  on  the  right  track.  Men  find  what  they  want 
to  find.  If  a  man  goes  about  trying  to  find  a 
grievance  he  can  easily  manufacture  one;  if  he  goes 
about  searching  for  affairs  that  are  going  awry  and 
not  being  properly  managed,  of  course  he  will  find 
some;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  tries  to  take  the 
higher  line  and  look  for  the  best,  he  will  presently 
see  that  the  evidence  on  that  side  altogether  out- 
weighs that  on  the  other. 

It  seems  to  me  most  important  that  we  should 
adopt  a  proper  attitude  of  utter  trust  towards  God 
— the  attitude  of  trust  founded  upon  reason  and  not 
upon  Wind  faith.  We  must  eliminate  all  cringing 
and  all  prayers  for  mercy.  Until  we  look  into  the 
matter  we  hardly  realize  how  all  the  old  prayers 
and  hymns  that  our  forefathers  have  been  using 
these  many  centuries  are  permeated  with  these  ideas 
of  fear,  cringing  and  horror.  People  say  the  words 


438  The  Christian  Festivals 

and  never  think  of  the  awful  implications  that  follow 
from  them.  When  they  say:  "Lord  have  mercy 
upon  us, ' '  what  do  they  mean  ?  They  must  mean^  at 
any  rate,  that  if  they  did  not  ask  Him  to  act  merci- 
fully, kindly,  justly,  He  would  not  do  so.  What 
right  have  they  to  think  such  a  wicked  thing  about 
our  loving  Father?  They  ask  Him  to  forgive  sins — 
meaning,  I  suppose,  if  words  mean  anything,  that 
if  He  were  not  asked  to  forgive  them  He  would 
hold  a  grudge  against  them.  What  right  have  they 
to  accuse  the  Father  of  Light  of  holding  a  grudge 
against  any  man? 

The  Greek  word  is  susceptible  of  a  far  better  inter- 
pretation; instead  of  remission  we  may  translate  it 
demission — the  putting  away  of  sins.  The  word 
may  be  used  to  imply  remission,  if  we  import  the  idea 
that  somebody  else  is  required  to  put  them  away ;  but 
its  simple  meaning  is  the  putting  away  of  siris.  It  is 
perfectly  open  to  us  to  read  that  article  in  the  Creed 
in  the  sense  that  we  believe  in  the  necessity  for  put- 
ting away  our  sins  before  we  can  make  any  progress. 
It  will  just  as  readily  bear  that  interpretation  as  the 
idea  of  remission ;  and  when  we  come  to  see  the  facts 
about  absolution,  we  observe  that  it  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  forgiveness  by  somebody  Who  is  affronted 
by  a  wrong  done  to  Him,  but  simply  the  actual 
mechanical  putting  straight  of  things  that  have  gone 
askew.  The  forgiveness  of  sins  is  simply  the  un- 
twisting of  the  distortion  we  have  caused  in  the 
higher  matter  of  our  subtler  bodies  by  setting  our- 
selves for  the  moment  against  the  great  current  of 
evolution,  and  doing  something  which  interferes  with 
that  current.  The  absolution  does  not  in  the  least 
degree  remove  any  guilt;  all  it  does  is  to  rectify 


God  as  Light  439 

some  of  the  subjective  consequences  of  guilt,  when 
the  new  factor  of  an  earnest  desire  for  improvement 
is  introduced. 

God  is  not  mocked;  we  need  not  deceive  our- 
selves; whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also 
reap;  but  if  we  are  brave  and  honest  we  do  not 
desire  anything  else  than  that.  If  we  have  made  a 
mistake,  we  are  ready  to  take  the  consequences.  We 
do  not  want  to  shuffle  them  off  upon  somebody  else; 
we  do  not  want  anyone  else  to  suffer  for  the  mis- 
take we  have  made.  That  surely  is  fair  and  reason- 
able; that  is  only  common  honour  and  decency.  We 
have  to  realize  that  matters  connected  with  religion 
are  not  cloudy,  far-away  and  uncertain,  but  that 
they  work  under  exactly  the  same  laws  as  everything 
else  in  nature.  A  cause  produces  its  effect  in  phy- 
sical matters;  so  in  moral  matters  also,  if  we  make 
a  mistake  we  have  set  a  cause  in  motion,  and  we 
produce  an  effect  which  reacts  upon  us.  If  we  do 
a  good  action,  then  also  we  have  set  a  cause  in 
motion,  arid  that  effect  also  reacts  up-on  us.  The 
angle  of  incidence  is  always  equal  to  the  angle  of 
reflection;  these  are  matters  not  of  faith  but  of 
common  sense. 

Another  point  shown  to  us  by  the  fact  that  God 
is  light  is  that  His  attitude  towards  us  is  not  that 
of  a  tyrant  who  long  ago  laid  down  a  code  of  rules 
and  expects  us  to  follow  them ;  He  is  a  living  Friend, 
near  us  all  the  time  and  ready  to  help  us  all  the 
time  if  we  will  take  advantage  of  His  aid.  Christ 
is  truly  a  Ruler  and  King;  yet  to  every  man  among 
us  Christ  is  also  the  best  Friend;  not  a  mere  his- 
torical character  of  two  thousand  years  ago,  but  an 
actual  Friend  living  here  and  now,  a  mighty  Power 


440  &he  Christian  Festivals 

in  every  human  life  if  the  man  will  only  let  Him 
be  so.  But  we  have  to  learn  this;  and  many  will 
not  learn.  Men  turn  their  backs  upon  the  sun  and 
cry  out  that  it  is  dark.  It  seems  easy  enough  to 
put  that  right;  we  have  only  to  turn  round  and  we 
shall  see  that  the  sun  is  shining. 

Whatever  darkness  there  is,  we  have  made  it  for 
ourselves,  either  in  the  past  or  now.  Remember 
what  a  great  Teacher  Who  lived  six  hundred  years 
before  the  birth  of  Christ  said:  "Do  not  complain, 
and  cry  and  pray,  but  open  your  eyes  and  see;  for 
the  truth,  the  light,  is  all  round  you  all  the  time, 
and  it  is  so  wonderful,  so  beautiful,  so  far  beyond 
what  any  man  has  ever  dreamt  of  or  prayed  for; 
and  it  is  for  ever  and  for  ever." 

That  is  the  eternal  truth.  It  is  just  as  true  for 
us  who  are  Christians  now  as  it  was  for  those  who 
heard  it  two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago  from 
the  lips  of  the  Lord  Buddha  far  away  in  India — 
the  same  eternal  truth  that  God  is  Light,  and  in  Him 
is  no  darkness  at  all. 


CHAPTEE  XXVIII 
FORETHOUGHT 

Many  people,  good  and  earnest  Christians,  have 
doubted  somewhat  about  the  words  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount;  because  it  is  obvious  that  to  take  no 
thought  for  the  morrow  is  distinctly  to  be  improvi- 
dent, and  that  the  man  who  takes  no  thought  as  to 
the  provision  of  food  and  clothing  for  himself  is 
simply  throwing  the  onus  of  that  duty  on  to  some- 
one else. 

People  accept  this  statement  as  representing  the 
teaching  of  the  Christ;  yet  they  feel  (and  quite 
rightly)  that  such  instruction  does  not  fit  in  with 
our  modern  life  at  all.  The  usual  way — not  to  get 
over  the  difficulty,  but  rather,  I  think,  to  evade  it 
— is  to  say  that  a  condition  of  affairs  which  allowed 
such  conduct  may  possibly  have  existed  in  the  time 
of  Christ;  or  that  that  is  how  we  ought  to  live,  but 
we  do  not. 

Those  who  have  made  any  study  of  the  higher 
criticism  are  aware  that  it  would  be  unjust  to  at- 
tribute to  the  Christ  all  the  words  that  are  credited 
to  Him  in  the  gospels,  because  we  know  that  those 
gospels  are  chiefly  meant  as  symbols  or  parables  and 
not  as  history;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  early 
Christians  wrote  down  and  preserved  many  of  the 
sayings  of  the  Christ,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  they  have  represented  some  of  those  sayings 
with  reasonable  accuracy.  There  are  certainly  some 
of  them  (such  as  the  cursing  of  the  barren  fig-tree) 
which  are  so  obviously  unworthy  of  Him  that  we 

441 


442  She  Christian  Festivals 

are  justified  in  instantly  rejecting  them;  'but  the 
remark  under  consideration  does  not  necessarily  be- 
long to  that  class,  though  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate it,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  make  a  clear  dis- 
tinction between  directions  given  to  His  immediate 
disciples  and  precepts  intended  for  the  world  at 
large. 

People  so  often  forget  that  Christianity  is  an 
oriental  religion,  and  that  the  Christ  was  a  Jew. 
There  seem  still  to  be  many  good  and  earnest  Chris- 
tians who  tliink  that  He  addressed  His  audiences  in 
idiomatic  English;  how  else  can  we  account  for 
their  blind  belief  in  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the 
English  version?  He  spoke  in  the  Koine  or  popular 
Hellenistic  form  of  Greek;  many  documents  in  ex- 
actly similar  language  have  recently  been  discovered, 
showing  that  this  tongue  was  that  of  the  people  all 
round  the  eastern  end  of  the  Mediterranean  at  that 
time.  Students  must  remember  that  any  religion 
that  comes  from  the  Orient,  and  was  originally 
spoken  to  Eastern  races,  is  written  and  preached 
from  the  oriental  point  of  view.  One  of  the  strong 
features  of  all  Eastern  systems  is  the  idea  that  every 
religious  teacher  must  be  a  man  specially  devoted 
to  the  holy  life;  he  must  be  what  in  India  we  should 
call  a  yogi— a  man  such  as  are  the  Buddhist  monks, 
a  man  not  unlike  the  friars  or  the  monks  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  Europe,  devoted  to  poverty,  chastity 
and  abstinence;  a  man  who,  by  the  very  terms  of 
his  existence  as  a  teacher,  can  possess  nothing  what- 
ever in  this  world.  That  is  so  at  the  present  day  in 
India,  and  in  the  Buddhist  countries;  a  religious 
teacher  may  theoretically  have  nothing  of  his  own; 
even  the  robes  that  he  wears  must  be  valueless. 


Forethought  443 

That  is  one  reason  why  Christian  missionaries 
have  made  so  little  headway  with  those  oriental 
races.  There  have  been  Christian  missionaries  in 
India  for  some  hundreds  of  years,  and  the  number 
of  converts  is  very  small,  and  none  of  them  are 
from  what  we  should  call  the  reputable  classes. 
They  see  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Church  of 
England  living  precisely  as  do  other  white  people, 
with  a  retinue  of  servants,  and  a  fine  big  salary.  The 
Oriental  laughs  at  them.  The  very  first  sign  by 
which  he  knows  a  religious  teacher  is  that  he  has  no 
possessions  whatever.  That  is  his  point  of  view, 
though  of  course  there  is  much  to  be  said  on  both 
sides.  Religious  teachers  could  hardly  live  in  that 
way  in  Europe  or  Australia;  but  as  that  is  the  in- 
grained oriental  idea,  the  only  way  to  approach  the 
Eastern  race  with  a  new  religion  would  be  to  send 
men  who  are  prepared  to  live  like  that.  The  only 
Christians  who  have  approached  the  Orientals,  at 
least  in  India,  in  a  reasonable  way  are  the  two  oppo- 
site poles  of  Christian  belief — the  Roman  Catholic 
priests  and  the  Salvation  Army.  They  go  and  live 
among  the  people,  and  as  the  people  live;  conse- 
quently they  are  at  least  honoured  and  respected  as 
religious  teachers  by  the  Indians,  even  though  the 
latter  may  say  that  the  religion  which  these  mis- 
sionaries put  before  them  does  not  appeal  to  them 
as  their  own  Hindu  faith  does. 

In  the  same  truly  oriental  way  the  Christ  chose 
His  disciples;  He  called  them  straight  away  from 
their  ordinary  modes  of  getting  a  living,  and  with 
true  oriental  fatalism  they  followed  Him  without 
hesitation.  Most  of  them  were  fishermen,  according 
to  the  story;  one  of  them  was  a  publican  (which 


444  The  Christian  Festivals 

does  not  mean  one  who  kept  a  public -house,  but  a 
man  who  collected  taxes).  St.  Paul  is  said  to  have 
been  a  tent-maker.  The  Christ  called  them  from 
their  work,  telling  them  to  give  up  their  lives  to  re- 
ligion and  to  follow  Him.  They  had  been  in  their 
small  way  tradesmen  or  business  men,  or  workmen, 
and  perhaps  they  had  some  qualms  about  giving  up 
their  living;  it  would  not  be  unnatural,  so  the  Christ 
exhorts  them  constantly:  "You  are  My  disciples; 
you  are  to  teach  the  people,  and  to  set  them  an 
example;  therefore  you  need  not  worry  about  money 
or  clothes  or  any  such  things.  Do  your  work,  and 
these  things  will  come  to  you." 

Our  ideas  are  so  absolutely  different  from  those 
in  the  Orient  that  it  would  be  quite  likely  to  occur  to 
us  that  these  religious  teachers  of  the  East  have  a 
very  easy  life.  Everything  they  need  is  provided, 
truly  not  on  a  magnificent  scale;  tout  food  and  cloth- 
ing are  always  certain.  I  once  heard  an  Indian  try- 
ing to  explain  these  matters  to  an  American.  The 
Indian  asked:  "Have  you  not  people  who  wander 
about  the  country  thus,  without  any  money,  making 
their  way  from  place  to  place  ? "  "0  yes, ' '  answered 
the  American,  "we  have  plenty  in  America,  but  we 
call  them  tramps!"  That  is  the  way  it  strikes  the 
man  of  this  quite  different  civilization.  The  Indian 
would  say,  ' '  Do  not  think  of  these  people  as  lazy :  on 
the  contrary,  they  are  living  a  spiritual  life  and  devot- 
ing themselves  wholly  to  that,  pouring  out  a  spiri- 
tual influence  and  shedding  the  light  of  a  spiritual 
life  over  us;  therefore  they  are  doing  for  us  a  work 
which  we  ourselves  have  not  time  to  do,  and  conse- 
quently we  are  very  glad  to  supply  them  in  return 
with  the  little  food  and  clothing  they  need."  Truly, 


Forethought  445 

it  is  little  enough,  as  far  as  that  goes;  <but  we  see 
how  totally  different  is  their  point  of  view. 

If  we  look  at  the  beginning  of  the  account  of  this 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  we  shall  see  that  Christ  called 
His  disciples  round  Him  and  spoke  to  them;  so  that 
obviously  He  is  telling  them  how  they  ought  to  live. 
He  does  not  by  any  means  lay  down  that  same  sort 
of  life  for  all  the  people  to  whom  He  speaks  on 
other  occasions.  We  must  have  a  rational  compre- 
hension of  what  was  meant  before  we  proceed 
to  condemn  the  teaching  as  unreasonable.  Most 
Christians  do  not  indeed  condemn  it  as  un- 
reasonable, though  they  live  as  though  they 
thought  it  so;  but  I  think  that  tacit  assumption  has 
done  a  good  deal  of  harm.  Here  are  quite  definite 
commands  which  they  take  as  given  to  them,  yet 
they  do  not  obey  them;  they  do  not  begin  to  think 
about  obeying  them.  No  ordinary  Christian  would 
for  a  moment  consent  to  take  no  thought  for  the 
morrow,  or  to  live  as  the  flowers  of  the  field  live. 
But  because  they  who  think  they  are  enjoined  to 
do  this  do  not  do  it,  and  would  consider  it  thriftless, 
objectionable,  unmanly  to  do  it,  a  certain  unreality 
overshadows  their  religion.  Here  are  what  they  re- 
gard as  plain  commands,  yet  they  never  think  of 
obeying  them;  why  therefore  should  they  obey  any 
of  the  other  commands  given  to  them  under  the 
guise  of  religion? 

There  should  be  no  pretence  about  religious  mat- 
ters in  any  way.  If  that  really  is  a  definite  command 
given  by  the  Christ  to  all  of  us.  we  ought  to  be 
trying  to  obey  it.  But  it  is  not  a  command  given  to 
all  of  us;  it  was  given  especially  to  that  band  of 
peripatetic  disciples.  He  speaks  quite  differently 


446  The  Christian  Festivals 

when  He  is  addressing  the  general  public.  Never- 
theless, there  are  useful  lessons  which  we  can  all 
learn  from  those  words,  even  though  we  recognize 
that  they  were  not  addressed  specifically  to  us. 
Christ  says  that  we  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon; 
and  that  is  eternally  true.  If  any  man  is  devoting 
the  whole  of  his  life  only  to  the  making  of  money 
and  thinking  always  of  that,  it  is  little  likely  that  he 
will  be  doing  much  to  help  on  evolution.  There  is 
assuredly  no  wrong  in  being  rich.  That  is  another 
quaint  idea  that  has  arisen  from  the  distortion  of 
this  same  doctrine — the  theory  that  it  is  a  wicked 
thing  to  be  rich.  Christ  is  reported  to  have  said: 
"How  hardly  shall  the  rich  man  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven !"  and  the  envious  and  ignorant 
take  that  to  mean  that  a  rich  man  cannot  escape 
hell,  which  is  not  in  the  very  least  what  the  Christ 
intended.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  means  the  Com- 
munion of  the  Saints,  the  Great  White  Brotherhood, 
the  body  of  Initiates;  and  it  is  true  that  a  very  rich 
man  would  find  it  difficult  to  lead  such  a  life  as 
an  Initiate  leads.  He  is,  and  he  must  -be,  altogether 
too  busy  in  worldly  affairs  to  devote  himself  entirely 
to  a  spiritual  life.  But  we  must  remember  that  it 
is  his  duty  to  be  busy  in  physical  life,  because  of 
the  wealth  which  has  been  entrusted  to  him.  So 
the  Christ's  remark  is  a  statement  of  an  obvious 
fact,  not  a  ridiculous  condemnation  of  a  man  to  hell 
because  he  happens  to  be  rich!  That  would  be  alto- 
gether unjust.  But  it  is  true  that  every  man,  rich 
or  poor,  who  wishes  to  please  God  and  to  make  pro- 
gress, must  undoubtedly  seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  His  righteousness;  he  must  always  keep 
before  him  the  idea  that  he  is  serving  God,  and  not 


Forethought  447 

living  merely  for  wealth.  That,  however,  is  a 
totally  different  thing  and  quite  a  reasonable  claim. 
He  who  devotes  himself  to  the  service  of  God  can 
best  do  so,  as  the  Christ  Himself  tells  us,  by  living 
to  serve  his  fellow-men.  He  says,  "You  have  fed 
Me  when  I  was  hungry;  you  have  given  drink  to 
Me  when  I  was  thirsty,  visited  Me  when  I  was  sick 
and  in  prison.  .  .  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  My  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto 
Me." 

His  instruction  to  us  is  that  we  shall  show  our 
love  to  God  in  the  shape  of  service  to  our  fellow- 
men.  That  means  that  we  must  always  be  on  God's 
side.  One  might  think  that  a  superfluous  sugges- 
tion, because  of  course  everybody  would  always  be 
on  God's  side.  Yes;  if  some  great  choice  were  set 
before  us — to  choose  between  the  good  and  the  evil, 
between  the  unselfish  and  the  selfish — I  quite  believe 
that  all  decent  people  would  at  once  declare  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  God  and  would  take  the  un- 
selfish line.  But  people,  Christians  as  well  as  others, 
often  forget  that  such  a  decision  comes  to  each  of 
them  many  times  every  day  in  the  little  things  of 
life.  I  have  already  quoted  St.  Augustine's  acute 
remark,  "Many  there  be  who  will  die  for  Christ; 
but  few  there  be  who  will  live  for  Him.1'  With 
all  respect  to  the  great  martyrs  it  is  not  so  diffi- 
cult to  be  a  martyr  on  some  tremendous  historic  oc- 
casion, but  in  the  every-day  little  troubles  and  trials 
we  often  do  not  realize  that  there  is  any  kind  of 
test,  and  so  it  often  happens  that  inadvertently  we 
fail,  just  for  want  of  thought.  We  have  to  live  for 
Christ  day  by  day,  and  we  must  be  on  God's  side 
in  the  little  things  as  well  as  in  the  great  emer- 


cc 


448  The  Christian  Festivals 

gencies.     These  latter   occur    but    rarely,   but    the 
little  things  are  always  with  us. 

The  world,  as  has  been  truly  said  by  a  great 
Teacher,  is  divided  into  two  classes:  the  people  who 
know  what  God's  scheme  is  and  therefore  are  al- 
ways working  on  His  side,  and  those  who  do  not 
know  and  therefore  are  at  present  following  selfish 
ideas.  You  must  either  be  among  the  few  who  are 
lifting  the  heavy  karma  of  the  world,  or  else  among 
the  enormous  majority  who  are  being  lifted.  That 
is  the  truth  of  it. 

Let  us  make  up  our  minds  that  in  little  things  as 
well  as  great  we  will  be  among  the  lifters,  and  not 
make  part  of  the  burden  that  they  have  to  raise. 
Let  us  see  to  it  that  our  service  to  our  God  is  ren- 
dered all  day  long,  and  that  our  lives  are  in  every 
respect  lives  devoted  to  Him,  because  they  are 
devoted  to  usefulness  to  our  fellowmen. 


piri  3 

ADDRESSES  DURING  THE  WAE 


149 


CHAPTEE  XXIX 
TPIE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  WAR 

The  great  war  is  the  one  topic  of  the  day,  the  one 
thing  about  which  everyone  speaks — the  one  thing, 
also,  about  which  everyone  thinks;  and  yet  vast 
numbers  of  people  are  not  thinking  rightly  about  it. 
There  are  many  who  do  not  know  what  to  think. 
They  are  torn  by  a  number  of  different  ideas,  and 
they  find  it  hard  to  take  a  balanced  view.  On  the 
one  side  there  is  often  a  rush  of  hatred  called  forth 
by  awful  barbarities,  by  unexampled  cruelties;  on 
the  other  side  there  is  a  strong  feeling — a  well- 
founded  feeling — that  war  is  a  wicked  and  insane 
thing,  which  never  settles  any  point  properly,  be- 
cause the  side  that  wins  in  a  war  need  not  at  all 
necessarily  be  always  the  right  side.  Providence, 
they  say,  is  on  the  side  of  the  biggest  guns;  and  the 
old  mediaeval  idea  that  war  was  always  decided  by 
some  higher  power  does  not  find  invariable  accept- 
ance in  the  present  day.  People  say:  "We  know  war 
is  an  evil  and  a  wicked  thing;  we  know  that  peace  is 
right  and  beautiful;  so  how  can  we  fight  with  any 
heart  ?"  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  when  such  awful 
things  are  happening,  is  it  not  every  man's  duty  to 
do  what  he  can  to  stay  the  evil  ?  So  there  is  a  general 
uncertainty  of  feeling,  and  many  people  hardly  know 
what  line  they  ought  to  take. 

Perhaps  a  statement  of  facts  with  regard  to  the 
war  from  the  inside  may  help  us  as  to  the  attitude 
which  we  ought  to  adopt.  In  my  own  mind  the 
position  is  absolutely  clear  and  definite,  because  I 

451 


452  &he  Christian  Festivals 

have  the  advantage  of  some  knowledge  of  the  inner 
side  of  things.  I  feel  that  the  attitude  which  men 
take  with  regard  to  this  war  is  a  matter  of  great 
importance.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  one  thing  to 
be  thought  of  now  is  to  win.  But  many  of  us  are 
not  able  to  go  and  fight,  and  the  attitude  that  we 
take  with  regard  to  the  war  may  make  the  final  settle- 
ment a  comparatively  easy  thing  or  an  almost  impos- 
sible thing;  therefore  it  is  not  unimportant  that  we 
should  have  the  right  ideas  clearly  in  our  minds. 

In  order  to  have  clear  ideas  upon  any  subject  we 
must  first  of  all  have  the  facts  at  our  command. 
There  is  always  a  hidden  side  to  everything — a  side 
which  is  unseen  by  the  ordinary  man,  uncontemplated 
by  the  ordinary  thinker;  yet  that  unseen  side  is 
nearly  always  vastly  more  important  and  vastly  more 
informing  than  the  side  which  is  seen. 

I  am  going  to  try  to  explain  something  of  the 
hidden  side  of  this  great  struggle,  because  that  may 
help  us  to  take  up  an  attitude,  to  form  an  opinion, 
which  will  be  helpful  and  not  harmful  when  we  come 
to  the  settlement  later. 

On  the  surface  this  war  seems  simple  enough,  al- 
though incredible.  All  who  know  anything  of  the 
real  history  of  events — I  mean  from  the  external 
point  of  view — know  that  Germany  has  been  prepar- 
ing through  many,  many  years,  with  a  careful,  cal- 
culcated  thoroughness  which  has  perhaps  never  been 
equalled  in  the  world,  to  make  a  spring  at  the  throat 
of  Europe;  just  precisely  that — to  make  a  tremen- 
dous bid  for  world-domination.  I  know  that  even 
that  much  is  not  generally  believed  in  Germany. 
There  they  try  to  persuade  themselves  that  they 


The  Truth  about  the  War  453 

were  forced  to  make  this  attack;  but  all  of  us  who 
have  read  the  evidence,  the  Blue  Books,  and  the 
various  messages  interchanged  between  the  countries 
concerned,  know  that  the  attack  was  absolutely  un- 
provoked, and  that  one  side  had  prepared  for  it  in 
a  perfectly  marvellous  manner — a  manner  which  is 
an  example  of  thoroughness  to  the  rest  of  the  world, 
but  unfortunately  an  example  of  unparalleled 
treachery  and  dishonour  as  well.  The  Allies  were, 
most  unfortunately,  unprepared  to  a  terrible  extent 
— to  an  extent  which  has  cost  a  vast  amount  in  lives 
and  in  suffering. 

All  that  is  on  the  surface  and  is  obvious.  Calcu- 
lated, detailed,  and  marvellously  unscrupulous  as 
was  the  preparation,  it  has  been  fully  equalled  by  the 
execution,  which  has  been  carried  out  with  a  deliber- 
ate brutality,  with  a  finished  and  fiendish  cruelty 
never  before  approached.  I  know  that  is  a  strong 
thing  to  say,  but  you  have  only  to  read  unimpeach- 
able evidence  to  see  that  it  is  true.  Unfortunately, 
I  know  it  to  be  true.  I  have  had  in  the  course  of 
work  on  other  planes  opportunities  'of  observation 
for  myself.  I  know  that  the  most  awful  stories  we 
have  heard  are  absolutely  founded  on  fact.  I  am 
sorry,  but  it  is  so.  We  have  to  face  things  as  they 
are — not  as  sentimentalism  would  like  to  have  them. 
We  have  to  face  things  as  they  are,  so  that  actually 
we  have  come  to  see  that  Kipling  was  right  in  his 
memorable  phrase:  "We  shall  now  have  to  revise 
our  vocabulary:  we  shall  now  have  to  divide  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  into  human  beings  and — 
Germans."  I  am  sorry,  but  I  am  giving  the  facts 
of  the  case. 


454  The  Christian  Festivals 

If  we  think  of  it,  that  is  a  most  amazing  thing; 
and  remember  that,  so  far  as  we  have  been  allowed 
to  hear,  there  has  been  no  protest.  Just  think:  I  do 
not  want  to  stir  up  any  man's  passions — it  is  the 
last  thing  I  should  desire  to  do;  but  just  think  of 
the  things  which  have  happened.  Remember  the 
Lusitania;  remember  the  Persia  and  the  Arabic. 
Think  of  how  many  cases  there  have  been  of  attacks 
upon  unprotected  towns,  the  deliberate  murder  (a 
verdict  of  wilful  murder  has  been  brought  in  by  a 
court  over  and  over  again)  of  non-combatants. 
Think  of  that  for  a  moment,  and  then  say:  how  can 
we  account  for  such  a  thing? 

Probably  all  of  us  have  known  people  belonging 
to  this  race.  I,  at  least,  have  known  many  Germans. 
I  belong  to  the  Theosophical  Society — a  society  which 
has  branches  in  every  country  in  the  world.  I  have 
met  men  of  that  race.  I  have  known  them  well ;  they 
have  been  friends  of  mine. 

It  is  true  that  in  that  Theosophical  Society  we 
had  a  foretaste  of  this  endeavour  to  dominate  the 
world,  for  the  German  section  of  the  Theosophical 
Society  rose  against  the  rest  of  it  and  tried  to  ob- 
tain supreme  power  in  the  Society  some  years  ago, 
before  this  war  was  in  sight.  They  employed  ex- 
actly the  same  weapons  that  are  now  being  employed 
by  the  political  agents  of  the  German  press:  the 
same  unscrupulous  lies,  the  same  discovery  of  spies 
in  all  sorts  of  unexpected  places.  We  in  the  Theo- 
sophical Society  went  through — on  paper  of  course 
mainly — a  small  edition  of  this  attempt  to  capture 
the  whole  organization.  We  did  not  understand 
then;  the  utter  unscrupulousness  of  it  all  astounded 
us.  Now  we  see  that  it  was  only  part  of  the  whole 


Gruth  about  the  War  455 

German  scheme — an  attempt  to  get  hold  of  a  world- 
wide Society,  through  which  something  might  have 
been  done  to  help  the  German  plan  of  world-domin- 
ation. Fortunately,  the  scheme  was  defeated,  with 
all  its  attendant  calumny  and  treachery. 

We  have  all  known  men  of  German  race:  were 
they  on  the  whole  the  kind  of  people  who  would  be- 
have in  this  fashion?  They  were  not.  This  dire 
change  requires  accounting  for;  it  needs  something 
absolutely  unusual,  something  entirely  novel  in  the 
way  of  an  explanation.  I  will  try  to  show  exactly 
how  it  did  happen — how  it  is  happening. 

Here  is  another  point.  We  all  of  us  feel,  I  think, 
that  we  are  engaged  more  or  less  in  a  war  of  prin- 
ciple, that  there  are  great  principles  at  stake,  that 
we  are  fighting  for  liberty,  for  what  is  called  demo- 
cracy. I  have  not  personally  by  any  means  an  un- 
alloyed admiration  of  democratic  methods;  but 
democracy  at  least  means  an  effort  towards  liberty 
for  the  people,  though  I  think  there  is  a  good  deal 
which  is  crude,  unfinished  and  unscientific  about  it. 

We  are  fighting  for  democracy  and  liberty  on  one 
side  as  against  terrible  tyranny  and  slavery  on  the 
other.  It  is  not  only  the  right  of  existence  of  smaller 
nations.  It  has  been  quite  openly  stated  in  the  Ger- 
man press  that  the  day  of  small  nations  is  over,  that 
Germany  does  not  want  small  nations,  that  they 
have  no  right  to  exist.  But  it  is  not  only  that  that 
is  at  stake;  more  nearly  than  that  is  it  honour,  and 
the  keeping  of  a  pledge.  We  know  well  how  the 
next  man  below  the  Emperor  described  a  solemn 
treaty  as  "only  a  scrap  of  paper, "  and  could  not 
understand  how  we  could  wish  to  go  to  war  merely 


456  The  Christian  Festivals 

for  this  scrap  of  paper.  It  is  against  that  kind  of 
thing  that  we  are  fighting.  The  fact  that  our 
enemies  have  miscalculated  does  not,  after  all,  make 
the  matter  any  better;  they  cynically  judged  us  by 
themselves — they  supposed  that  Ireland  would  be 
certain  to  rebel  (because  it  seemed  on  the  verge  of 
civil  war)  if  England  were  attacked;  they  believed 
that  men  in  Australia,  with  our  fellow-citizens  of 
the  Empire  in  Canada  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
would  all  take  the  opportunity  to  break  away.  That 
is  what  they  expected;  they  calculated  on  all  that. 
They  have  miscalculated,  but  that  does  not  make 
their  case  any  better. 

So  quite  clearly  we  are  standing  for  principles; 
more  truly  than  most  men  know,  and  on  a  greater 
scale  than  they  know,  is  this  a  question  of  principle. 

We  know  that  there  are  forces  which  work  against 
evolution  as  well  as  those  which  work  in  favour  of 
it.  We  know  that  there  is  frequently  a  small,  even 
a  personal,  struggle  taking  place  between  these  forces 
over  individuals,  and  sometimes  over  what  seem  to 
us  quite  small  things.  But  we  know  also  that  now 
and  then  great  world-crises  arise,  where  good  and 
evil  set  themselves  against  one  another  in  serried 
array,  and  humanity  is  influenced  by  these  powers 
and  driven  into  taking  part  on  one  side  or  the  other. 
The  last  occasion  on  which  so  great  a  world-struggle 
took  place  was  in  Atlantis  some  twelve  or  thirteen 
thousand  years  ago.  There  was  a  great  fight  then 
between  those  who  were  on  the  side  of  good  and 
those  who  were  on  the  side  of  selfishness. 

We  may  read  something  of  the  action  of  the  Lords 
of  the  Dark  Face  in  Atlantis  in  The  Secret  Doctrine. 


lohe  Gruth  about  the  War  457 

Madame  Blavatsky  devotes  much  time  and  energy 
to  expounding  their  line  of  work.  We  must  try  to 
understand  tha,t  there  may  be  people  who  are  do- 
ing what  to  us  seems  absolutely  evil,  and  yet  they 
may  think  themselves  justified  in  their  action.  They 
may  think  that  the  line  which  they  are  taking  is 
not  evil,  but  in  the  long  run  good.  It  is  true  that 
when  they  say:  "in  the  long  run  good,"  I  think 
they  generally  mean  good  for  themselves;  but  these 
Lords  of  the  Dark  Face  had  their  own  view  of  evo- 
lution, and  to  themselves  they  justified  it,  much 
along  the  line  in  which  some  people  in  these  days 
try  to  justify  the  action  of  Judas  Iscariot  on  the 
ground  that  he  was  more  anxious  than  the  rest  that 
the  Master's  glory  should  be  shown  forth  to  the 
world,  and  so  he  put  his  Master  in  a  position  where 
he  thought  that  He  must  show  forth  His  glory.  How- 
ever incredible  it  may  seem,  that  view  is  gravely 
put  forward  by  some  writers. 

The  Lords  of  the  Dark  Face  in  Atlantis  were 
intensifying  themselves  as  separated  beings  against 
the  stream  of  evolution.  "We  hold  that  the  trend  of 
evolution  is  towards  unity — that  this  vast  multiplex 
Universe  that  we  see  around  us  is  all  the  expression 
of  One  Mighty  Power,  and  that  as  from  Him  we  all 
came  out,  so  to  Him  one  day  we  shall  all  return — 
not  losing  our  sense  of  individuality,  not  losing  the 
memory  and  the  benefit  of  all  our  experience,  but 
certainly  rising  ever  higher  and  higher  into  perfect 
realization  of  our  unity  with  Him.  Therefore,  we 
know  it  to  be  pleasing  to  Him  that  we  should  work 
ever  towards  that  unity. 

But  those  who  hold  the  opposite  view  think  that 
the  Deity  sets  up  this  current  which  we  call  evolu- 


458  The  Christian  Festivals 

tion  in  order  that  we  may  strengthen  ourselves  by 
fighting  against  it;  and  although  we  do  not  believe 
that,  we  can  see  that  it  is  a  possible  view,  and  it 
is  clear  that  men  who  hold  it  will  not  live  at  all  as 
we  do.  We  think  that  such  people  are  vitally  in 
error,  that  they  are  allowing  themselves  to  be 
clouded  by  the  lower  self;  still  we  can  see  that  they 
try  to  justify  their  position  by  a  certain  line  of 
argument. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  those  Lords 
of  the  Dark  Face  were  doing  evil  for  evil's  sake; 
but  they  held  what  we  consider  a  wrong  and  selfish 
view  as  to  the  intention  of  the  Deity.  I  have  my- 
self heard  some  of  their  successors  of  thfc  present  day 
say :  ' l  You  people  think  you  know  what  God  means ; 
your  Masters  hold  these  views,  and,  of  course,  you 
follow  Them.  But  we  have  a  different  view;  we  are 
following  the  traditions  of  a  very  ancient  school  and 
we  contrive  to  hold  our  own  fairly  well.'7 

In  Atlantis  this  attitude  led,  among  the  ordinary 
and  commonplace  followers,  to  extreme  selfishness 
and  sensuality,  to  general  unscrupulousness  and 
irresponsibility.  It  led  to  an  extraordinary  condi- 
tion in  which  each  man  set  up  an  image  of  him- 
self and  worshipped  that  as  a  god — a  perversion  of 
the  perfectly  true  idea  that  God  is  within  everyone 
of  us,  and  that  if  you  cannot  find  Him  within  your- 
self it  is  useless  to  look  for  Him  elsewhere.  So  it 
came  about  that  there  was  a  vast  revolution  against 
the  Ruler  of  the  Golden  Gate,  and  practically  the 
good  and  evil  forces  which  are  always  seeking  to 
influence  the  world  found  physical  expression  in 
that  great  series  of  battles  in  Atlantis.  In  that 
case  the  majority  of  the  population  was  distinctly 


Ghe  &ruth  about  the  War  459 

on  the  side  of  evil,  and  the  evil  won.  Because  the 
evil  won,  it  was  necessary,  more  than  one  thousand 
years  afterwards,  to  whelm  that  great  island  of 
Poseidonis  beneath  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic;  and 
sixty-five  million  people  died  within  twenty-four 
hours  in  that  great  cataclysm. 

This  time  once  more  the  forces  of  good  and  evil 
have  materialized  themselves  here  on  the  physical 
plane,  and  the  mighty  contest  has  come  down  again 
to  this  level.  Bemem!ber,  we  are  the  same  people 
who  were  in  Atlantis,  and  it  is  probable  that  we 
took  our  part  in  the  struggle — with  the  minority,  let 
us  hope — yet  perhaps  some  of  us  with  the  majority; 
it  is  a  long  time  ago,  and  we  cannot  be  certain. 

I  remember  reading  a  terrible  story  (fiction  only, 
I  hope,  for  it  could  hardly  have  been  actual  fact) 
of  the  recovered  memory  of  a  past  incarnation. 
There  was  once  a  man,  an  earnest  and  devout  Chris- 
tian, who  through  the  accident  of  subjecting  him- 
self to  mesmeric  treatment,  found  that  in  a  trance 
condition  he  was  able  to  gain  glimpses  of  what  he 
felt  to  be  past  lives  of  this  own.  Incredulous  at  first, 
the  strength  and  vividness  of  his  experiences  soon 
forced  him  to  admit  that  they  must  be  real  reminis- 
cences; and  in  this  way  he  acquired  much  interest- 
ing information  about  mediaeval  periods.  Then  arose 
in  his  mind  a  wild  but  fervent  hope  that  if  he  could 
press  his  memory  further  he  might  discover  that 
he  had  been  on  earth  during  the  lifetime  of  Jesus; 
he  yearned  inexpressibly  for  a  glimpse  of  that  Divine 
Presence ;  he  imagined  himself  following  and  ecstatic- 
ally worshipping  the  Lord  whom  he  so  loved;  he 
even  dared  to  hope  that  perhaps  he  might  have  had 
the  supreme  honour  of  martyrdom  for  his  faith. 


460  The  Christian  Festivals 

Further  and  further  in  successive  trances  he  pushed 
back  his  recollection,  until  at  last  with  inexpressible 
thankfulness  and  awe  he  realized  that  he  had  trod- 
den the  sacred  soil  of  Palestine  at  the  very  same  time 
as  that  majestic  Figure.  And  then,  with  a  shock  so 
terrible  that  it  left  him  a  dying  man,  he  knew  the 
appalling  truth  that  in  that  life  of  long  ago  he  had 
been  a  rabid  unit  in  an  angry  crowd  yelling  wildly: 
" Crucify  Him!  crucify  Him!" 

I  trust  devoutly  that  we  were  all  on  the  right  side 
in  that  stupendous  struggle  in  Atlantis;  but,  how- 
ever that  may  have  been,  at  least  the  very  same 
people  are  having  their  chance  again  now;  but  this 
time  the  majority,  thank  Heaven,  is  on  the  side  of 
the  good,  and  the  good  will  win.  This  very  fact, 
that  many  who  were  on  the  wrong  side  then  are  on 
the  right  side  now,  is  full  of  hope  and  cheer  for 
us,  for  it  shows  that  in  spite  of  all  appearances  to 
the  contrary,  the  world  is  evolving;  and,  however 
disheartening  are  our  failures,  we  are  on  the  whole 
better  men  than  we  were  twelve  thousand  years  ago. 

Therefore  we  may  hope  to  avoid  for  some  thou- 
sands of  years  to  come  a  cataclysm  on  the  tremen- 
dous scale  that  sank  Poseidonis.  But  if  the  evil 
won,  the  cataclysm  would  follow;  it  must  follow, 
for  the  Deity  intends  that  humanity  shall  evolve, 
and  if  part  of  humanity  deliberately  casts  itself 
out  of  the  line  of  evolution,  that  particular  set  of 
bodies  and  minds  must  be  wiped  out,  and  must  be- 
gin again  under  other  conditions.  These  German 
souls  will  come  back  to  birth  again  presently,  scat- 
tered all  over  the  world  in  various  countries,  so 
that  there  can  no  longer  be  the  same  terrible 


Gruth  about  the  War  461 

strength  of  united  unscrupulousness  that  has  made 
that  nation  a  danger  to  the  world. 

We  must  not  think,  if  we  can  help  it  (I  know 
how  hard  it  is  to  help  it)  that  the  people  who  fight 
on  the  side  of  the  evil  are  necessarily  all  wicked 
people.  Unquestionably  many  of  them  are  appall- 
ingly wicked;  but  equally  unquestionably  many  of 
them  are  not  so  by  nature;  they  are  victims  of  a 
mighty  obsession- — an  obsession  so  tremendous  in  its 
power  that  if  you  and  I  had  been  subjected  to  it 
we  too  might  not  have  seen  our  way  clear  through 
it  and  come  out  of  it  unstained;  who  can  tell? 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  people,  as  good  as  we, 
have  not  come  through  it  satisfactorily. 

The  power  behind  which  is  contrary  to  evolution 
can  and  does  seize  upon  a  whole  nation  and  obsess 
it  and  influence  it.  It  is  true  that  it  cannot  do  that 
(just  as  is  the  case  with  individual  obsession),  unless 
there  is  in  the  obsessed  something  or  other  which 
responds.  But  if  there  be  in  any  nation  a  majority, 
or  even  a  powerful  minority,  which — perhaps  through 
pride,  perhaps  through  grossness  and  coarseness, 
through  not  having  opened  up  sufficiently  the  love 
side  of  the  nature,  through  having  given  itself  too 
entirely,  too  unscrupulously  to  developing  intellect 
— is  already  in  that  condition  of  ready  response  to 
evil,  then  the  rest  of  the  nation,  the  weaker  people, 
are  simply  swept  along  with  them,  and  they  cannot 
see  straight  for  the  time.  We  must  try  to  realize 
that. 

What,  then,  was  there  in  Germany  which  has  made 
this  awful  obsession  possible?  I  find  part  of  the 
answer  to  this  question  in  a  remarkable  set  of  statis- 
tics which  I  came  across  recently  in  Pearson's  Mag  a- 


462  The  Christian  Festivals 

zine,  in  an  article  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Wile,  the  resident 
correspondent  in  Berlin  of  various  well-known  news- 
papers. They  are  taken  from  a  'book  called  The 
Soid  of  Germany,  written  by  a  Professor  of  the 
University  of  Erlangen,  in  Bavaria.  He  nxakes  a 
comparison  between  the  amount  of  certain  kinds  of 
crime  which  came  before  the  Courts  in  England  and 
in  Germany  in  a  period  of  ten  years.  It  must  be 
remembered,  in  making  such  a  comparison,  that  the 
population  of  Great  Britain  is  about  forty  million, 
while  that  of  Germany  is  seventy  million;  so  that 
we  must  add  75  per  cent,  to  the  English  numbers 
to  see  what,  if  the  two  countries  stood  at  an  equal 
level  of  moral  development,  we  might  reasonably 
expect  to  find  in  Germany;  but  even  after  making 
this  allowance  we  shall  see  a  truly  appalling  dispro- 
portion. Forgive  me  if  the  statistics  are  unsavoury, 
but  we  want  to  understand  how  this  ghastly  condi- 
tion of  affairs  has  arisen. 

The  professor  takes  first  the  crime  of  maliciously 
or  feloniously  "wounding.  Of  this  there  occurred  in 
England  1,262  cases,  so  we  might  expect  in  Ger- 
many about  2,200;  the  actual  numlber  is  172,153. 

During  the  same  time  there  were  in  England  97 
murders,  which  would  lead  us  to  estimate  those  in 
Germany  at  170;  the  number  given  is  350 — almost 
exactly  double  what  might  be  expected;  and  there 
is  a  further  complication  due  to  the  fact  that  (we 
read)  there  are  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  man- 
killings  in  the  Fatherland  which  the  German  law 
does  not  technically  term  murders — which,  therefore, 
do  not  appear  in  murder  statistics. 

Of  rapes  there  were  in  Britain  216,  which  should 
give  380  in  Germany;  there  were  actually  9,381. 


&he  &ruth  about  the  War  463 

Cases  of  incest  were  with  us  56 ;  we  might,  therefore 
look  for  about  100  in  Germany,  but  we  find  573. 

The  number  of  illegitimate  children  was  with  us 
37,041 — a  sufficiently  shameful  total,  which  should 
lead  us  to  look  for  perhaps  65,000  in  the  larger 
country;  instead  of  this  there  are  178,115. 

Of  malicious  damage  to  property — a  peculiarly 
mean  and  cold-blooded  crime — I  regret  to  say  that 
we  had  in  England  358,  so  on  the  same  scale  there 
might  have  been  627  in  the  Fatherland;  but  there 
really  were  no  less  than  25,759. 

When  I  first  quoted  these  statistics  they  were 
questioned;  but  I  find  them  confirmed  in  Mr.  de 
Halsalle's  book,  Degenerate  Germany,  where  it  is 
stated  that  the  English  figures  are  extracted  from 
Home  Office  publications,  and  the  German  figures 
from  the  Imperial  Statistics  of  1908  (op.  cit.  p.  180). 
Any  one  who  will  procure  and  read  the  book  which 
I  have  just  mentioned  will  find  therein  abundant 
evidence  for  a  worse  and  more  far-reaching  indict- 
ment even  than  that.  To  quote  from  another  and 
quite  distinct  source,  in  a  leaflet  published  in  the 
United  States,  Mr.  George  L.  Fox,  Principal  of  the 
University  School,  Newhaven,  Connecticut,  makes 
the  following  comparison  of  crime  in  the  two 
countries : — 

"The  population  of  Germany  is  to  that  of  Eng- 
land as  5  to  3.  As  to  crime,  the  proportion  in  incest 
is  about  13  to  1 ;  in  procuring  it  is  264  to  1 ;  in  pro- 
curing abortions  it  is  29  to  1;  in  unnatural  offences 
it  is  7  to  1;  in  rape  and  other  sexual  crimes  it  is 
about  9  to  1;  in  murder,  manslaughter  and  other 
death-causing  crimes  it  is  5  to  1 ;  in  arson  it  is  about 


DD 


464  The  Christian  Festivals 

4  to  1.  With  regard  to  divorces  it  is  22  to  1;  as 
to  illegitimate  births  it  is  5  to  1;  while  the  number 
of  suicides  is  four  times  as  great  as  in  England." 

In  some  cases  the  figures  given  in  this  last  com- 
parison are  worse  than  those  of  the  first,  while  in 
others  they  are  better;  probably  Mr.  Fox  worked 
with  data  covering  a  much  shorter  time  than  the 
Erlangen  Professor.  But  in  both  cases  alike  the 
results  are  astounding  and  terrible. 

God  forfoid  that  we  should  set  ourselves  up  to 
be  self-righteous;  we  English  have  our  faults,  and 
grave  faults;  but  when  we  examine  those  statistics 
we  cannot  but  realize  that  there  has  been  a  difference 
in  the  average  level  of  morality ;  we  begin  to  see  how 
this  incredible  and  awful  obsession  has  happened, 
and  why  it  was  that  the  plan  originally  made  by  the 
Great  Ones  for  this  particular  little  bit  of  human 
evolution  could  not  be  carried  out. 

It  was  hoped  that  the  Fifth  Root-Race  would 
stand  as  a  whole,  or,  at  any  rate,  that  the  Fifth 
Sub-Race  would  stand  as  a  whole.  And  the  hope 
was  nearly  realized.  The  Powers  that  stand  behind 
human  evolution  worked  long  through  Their  pupils 
to  prevent  this  catastrophe.  Whether  those  Powers 
knew  all  the  time  that  Their  labour  would  not 
achieve  its  end,  I  cannot  tell.  We  sometimes  think 
of  Them  as  knowing  beforehand  all  that  will  hap- 
pen; whether  They  do  or  not,  I  know  not,  but  at 
least  it  is  certain  that  in  many  cases  They  work  most 
earnestly  to  produce  certain  results,  and  to  give  to 
men  certain  opportunities.  Through  the  failure  of 
humanity  to  take  the  chances  offered,  the  results 
may  not  then  be  attained,  but  often  they  are  post- 


Gruth  about  the  War  465 

poned  for  what  to  us  seems  an  enormous  time.  The 
Great  Deity  of  the  solar  system  knows  perfectly  all 
that  will  happen,  and  knows  who  will  take  his 
chances  and  who  will  not.  That  we  must  believe; 
whether  all  who  work  under  Him  also  know  that,  we 
cannot  tell.  Certainly  I  know  that  a  great  conflict 
between  good  and  evil  forces  has  been  long  impend- 
ing over  us.  I  know  also  that  it  need  not  have  taken 
precisely  the  form  it  has  taken,  if  only  some  of 
those  to  whom  great  opportunities  were  offered  had 
risen  to  the  level  of  those  opportunities  and  had 
taken  them. 

Some  have  taken  them.  This  mighty  British 
Empire  has  been  formed,  and  has  been  welded  to- 
gether by  bonds  of  close  affection  in  a  way  in  which 
no  Empire  has  ever  been  united  before.  There  was 
a  huge  Roman  Empire;  but  it  was  self-interest,  the 
Roman  peace,  and  the  power  of  Rome  which  held 
that  together.  It  was  not  the  love  for  Rome  of  those 
subject  races  at  all.  There  have  been  other  vast 
Empires  in  the  past,  but  they  were  held  together  by 
force,  not  by  love.  But  what  else  than  love  holds 
this  Empire  together?  England,  the  little  Mother 
State,  has  no  wish  to  coerce  it.  Once  she  did,  under 
utterly  mistaken  direction  by  an  obstinate  King  and 
a  foolish  Minister,  try  to  coerce  the  American  colo- 
nies. The  only  result  of  that  was  that  nearly  half 
of  what  should  have  been  the  Empire  is  not  part  of 
it  now,  though  it  is  being  bound  closely  to  it  by 
other  ties.  It  should  have  been  all  within  this  one 
great  Empire;  that  was  the  plan,  but  the  stupidity 
of  man  overthrew  that  part  of  it.  England  has  made 
no  later  effort  to  coerce  the  far  mightier  Dominions 
attached  to  her.  She  has  left  them  perfectly  free; 


466  &he  Christian  Festivals 

yet  they  are  bound  to  her  more  closely  now  than 
they  ever  were  before. 

It  was  hoped  that  the  other  nations  which  be- 
long to  our  sub-race  would  join  in  a  great  confedera- 
tion. America  and  England  have  been  drawn  closely 
together,  so  that  war  between  them  is  now  scarcely 
thinkable;  and  the  hope  was  that  Scandinavia  and 
Germany  would  have  come  into  a  similar  friendship ; 
but  Germany  would  not  come  in.  There  has  been 
for  many  years  a  curious  and  undesirable  form  of 
national  spirit  arising  in  that  country.  There  is 
plenty  of  evidence  as  to  this.  If  we  read  the  Ger- 
man literature,  we  shall  easily  see  the  direction  in 
which  for  forty  years  and  more  its  people  have  been 
going.  Because  of  their  intense  pride,  because  of 
the  teaching  of  brutality  and  of  force,  of  blood  and 
iron  instead  of  the  law  of  love,  and  because  of  the 
low  level  of  general  morality  which  is  the  direct 
consequence  of  such  teaching,  they  have  laid  them- 
selves open  to  this  dreadful  obsession,  and  some  of 
the  great  Lords  of  the  Dark  Face  have  again  taken 
their  place  among  them. 

Prince  Bismarck  was  such  an  one,  as  Madame 
Blavatsky  told  us  long  ago.  While  he  was  still  alive 
lie  laid  his  plans  for  the  subjugation  of  Europe.  We 
may  be  thankful  he  has  not  survived  till  the  present, 
for  his  plans  were  far  wiser  than  those  of  the  men 
who  have  followed  him.  Long  ago  Madame  Blavatsky 
explained  to  us  that  he  had  considerable  occult 
knowledge,  and  that  before  the  war  with  France  in 
1870  he  had  travelled  physically  to  certain  points 
to  the  north,  the  south,  the  east,  and  the  west  of 
France,  and  had  there  cast  spells  of  some  sort,  or 
made  magnetic  centres,  with  the  object  of  prevent- 


She  Gruth  about  (he  War  467 

ing  effective  resistance  to  the  German  armies.  Cer- 
tainly the  French  collapse  at  the  time  was  so  com- 
plete and  unexpected  that  it  seemed  to  need  some 
unusual  explanation. 

In  the  course  of  the  work  of  the  invisible  helpers 
on  the  battle-field  I  have  several  times  encountered 
and  spoken  to  the  Prince,  who  naturally  watches  with 
the  keenest  interest  all  that  happens;  and  some 
months  ago  I  had  an  interesting  conversation  with 
him.  Speaking  of  the  war,  he  said  that  if  we  were 
servants  of  the  Hierarchy  and  students  of  Occultism 
we  must  know  that  Germany  was  in  the  right.  One 
of  our  party,  becoming  somewhat  indignant,  replied 
that  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was  willing  to  be  at 
peace,  that  Germany  had  made  an  unprovoked  at- 
tack, and  had  caused  all  this  awful  carnage,  and 
was  therefore  entirely  in  the  wrong.  But  the  Prince 
said: 

"No,  no;  you  do  not  understand.  This  is  a 
struggle  which  had  to  come — a  struggle  between  the 
forces  of  law  and  order,  science  and  culture  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  those  of  disorder  and 
license,  and  the  degrading  tendencies  of  democracy. 
It  does  not  matter  how  it  started.  If,  as  you  say. 
Germany  began  it  by  an  act  of  unexampled  aggres- 
sion, what  of  that?  It  is  fate;  it  had  to  be — if  not 
in  this  way,  then  in  some  other ;  and  this  way  offered 
us  the  best  chance  of  success;  though  for  my  part, 
I  should  have  set  all  these  nations  to  fight  one  an- 
other first,  and  I  should  have  stepped  in  when  they 
were  all  exhausted." 

We  maintained  that  we  also  loved  law  and  order, 
science  and  culture,  but  we  wished  along  with  them 
to  have  liberty  and  progress.  The  Prince  would 


468  The*  Christian  Festivals 

have  none  of  such,  ideas;  he  declared  that  democracy 
cared  nothing  for  culture,  but  wished  to  drag  every- 
body down  to  a  common  level,  and  that  the  lowest; 
that  it  desired  law  to  rob  and  restrain  the  rich,  but 
itself  would  obey  no  law;  that  it  had  no  conception 
of  liberty  under  law  (which  is  the  only  true  liberty), 
but  desired  a  triumph  of  utter  lawlessness,  in  which 
selfish  might  should  rule,  and  only  those  should  be 
restrained  who  wished  to  live  and  work  as  free  men. 
Further,  he  said  that  if  we  ourselves  served  the 
true  inner  Government  of  the  world  we  must  know 
that  it  is  the  very  opposite  of  all  democratic 
theories,  and  that  therefore  it  is  Germany,  and  not 
England,  who  is  fighting  for  the  ideals  of  the  hier- 
archical Government. 

11  Which,"  he  asked,  "is  nearer  to  the  true  ideal 
of  a  King — our  Kaiser,  who  holds  his  power  from 
God  alone,  or  your  King  George,  who  can  strike  out 
no  line  of  his  own,  whose  every  action  is  limited  by 
his  ministers  and  his  parliament,  so  that  he  can  do 
no  real  good?  And  the  French  President,  what  is 
he  but  the  scum  momentarily  thrown  to  the  top  of 
a  boiling  mass  of  corruption  ?" 

We  were  most  indignant  at  such  an  insult  to  our 
brave  Allies;  but  we  could  not  but  admit  that  there 
was  a  modicum,  of  truth  in  some  of  his  earlier  re- 
marks. We  tried  to  tell  him  that,  though  we  shared 
his  utter  disbelief  in  the  methods  of  democracy,  we 
thought  it  a  necessary  intermediate  stage  through 
which  the  world  had  to  pass  on  its  way  to  a  nobler 
freedom,  because  a  scheme  (however  good)  which 
was  forced  upon  a  people  could  never  lead  to  its 
ultimate  evolution;  but  that  men  must  learn  to 
choose  the  good  for  themselves  with  open  eyes,  to  re- 


The  firuth  about  the  Gdar  469 

nonace  their  brutal  selfishness,  not  because  they  were 
driven  to  do  so  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  but  be- 
cause they  themselves  had  learnt  to  see  the  higher 
way  and  the  necessity  that  each  should  control  him- 
self for  the  good  of  all. 

The  Prince  was  absolutely  unconvinced;  he  said 
that  our  plan  was  Utopian,  and  that  we  could  never 
bring  the  canaille  to  understand  such  considerations 
— that  the  only  way  to  deal  with  them  was  the 
method  of  blood  and  iron,  forcing  them  for  their  own 
ultimate  good  (and  meantime  for  our  convenience) 
into  the  life  which  we  who  were  wiser  saw  to  be  best 
for  them. 

When  some  of  this  was  later  reported  to  the  King 
of  England,  he  smiled,  and  said  quietly: 

"I  believe  that  God  has  called  me  to  the  position 
which  I  hold,  just  as  much  as  He  has  called  my 
imperial  cousin  the  Kaiser;  I  rule  not  by  force,  but 
because  my  people  love  me,  and  I  want  no  higher 
title  than  that/' 

I  fear  we  must  admit  the  Prince's  claim  that  man 
as  a  whole  is  not  yet  fit  for  freedom;  but  he  can 
never  become  fit  unless  he  is  allowed  to  try  the 
experiment.  Of  course  at  first  he  will  go  wrong  just 
as  often  as  he  will  go  right.  We  shall  have  an  inter- 
mediate period  when  things  are  not  at  all  as  they 
should  be,  when  they  are  not  by  any  means  as  well 
managed  as  they  would  be  under  a  benevolent  des- 
potism. Nevertheless  we  shall  never  get  men  to 
advance  unless  we  leave  them  a  certain  amount  of 
freedom.  We  must  pass  through  this  unlovely  stage 
of  democratic  mismanagement,  in  order  to  get  a 
time  when  the  government  of  the  people  will  be  the 
government  of  the  best.  At  present  frankly  it  is 


470  The  Christian  Festivals 

not  that.  Aristocracy  means  government  by  the 
best;  democracy  means  government  by  the  people. 
We  hope  for  a  time  when  democracy  and  aristocracy 
will  be  one.  We  expect  to  reach  that  by  our  system ; 
we  should  never  get  there  along  the  line  of  military 
despotism.  That  is  the  real  fundamental  point  at 
issue;  so  we  see  that  this  war  is  essentially  one  of 
principles. 

If  any  should  be  inclined  to  doubt  that  a  whole 
nation  can  be  so  obsessed  from  behind — a  nation 
which  has  a  great  deal  that  is  beautiful  in  its  past 
history,  which  has  produced  some  really  fine  people 
— let  him  take  the  official  German  statements,  and 
read  the  proclamations  of  His  Imperial  Majesty  the 
Kaiser;  the  proclamations  in  which  he  speaks  of  him- 
self (and  probably  he  believes  it)  as  commissioned 
by  God  to  govern  the  world;  in  which  he  says:  "On 
me  the  spirit  of  God  has  descended.  I  regard  my 
whole  task  as  appointed  by  heaven.  Who  opposes  me 
I  shall  crush  to  pieces.  Nothing  must  be  settled 
in  this  world  without  the  intervention  of  the  Ger- 
man Emperor. "  See  the  insane  pride  of  this,  and 
realize  that  the  whole  nation,  so  far  as  we  know, 
applauds  and  approves.  Read  Mr.  Owen  Wister's 
''embodiment  or  composite  statement  of  Prussian- 
ism,  compiled  sentence  by  sentence  from  the  utter- 
ances of  Prussians,  the  Kaiser  and  his  generals,  pro- 
fessors, editors  and  Nietzsche;  part  of  it  said  in 
cold  blood,  years  before  this  war,  and  all  of  it  a 
declaration  of  faith  now  being  ratified  by  action. " 
Read  the  calm  statement:  "Weak  nations  have  not 
the  same  right  to  live  as  powerful  nations.  The 
world  has  no  longer  need  of  little  nationalities." 
"The  Belgians  should  not  be  shot  dead;  they  should 


The  Truth  about  the  ®ar  471 

be  so  left  as  to  make  impossible  all  hope  of  recovery. 
The  troops  are  to  treat  the  Belgian  civil  population 
with  unrelenting  severity  and  f rightf ulness. "  Think 
of  the  calculated  devilishness  of  that  instruction; 
were  there  ever  ruffians  so  inhuman,  so  unspeakable 
since  the  the  world  began?  Remember  all  the  hor- 
rors of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  and  remember 
how  that  great  German  nation  went  mad  with  joy 
over  the  slaughter  of  non-combatants,  of  helpless 
women  and  children.  Except  by  that  theory  of 
obsession  how  can  we  account  for  it?  As  I  have 
said,  many  of  us  have  known  people  of  that  nation. 
Were  they  such  people  as  would  have  agreed  to  any- 
thing of  that  kind?  Of  course  they  were  not;  no 
more  than  you  or  I.  Unquestionably  it  is  true  that 
the  powers  from  behind  are  working  through  these 
people  now. 

This  is  the  real  explanation  of  all  that  seems  so 
incomprehensible;  these  people  that  fight  us  are  not 
fighting  only  of  themselves.  They  are  directed  by 
a  power  of  will  far  stronger  than  their  own,  and 
they  are  driven  on  to  do  awful  things.  They  are 
willing  enough  to  be  driven,  for  that  is  all  part  of 
the  obsession.  The  men  who  drive  them  are  utterly 
unscrupulous,  and  will  use  any  means  whatever  to 
gain  their  end,  for  they  know  nothing  of  what  we 
mean  by  right  or  wrong.  They  hold  it  as  a  manly 
duty  to  kill  out  all  emotion  or  sympathy,  because 
they  consider  such  feelings  a  weakness.  They  are 
pitiless,  exactly  as  a  shark  is.  The  slaughter  or 
torture  of  thousands  or  millions  is  nothing  what- 
ever to  them,  so  long  as  they  gain  their  end. 

If  this  had  not  been;  if  the  Fifth  Sub-Race  had 
all  combined  together  to  present  a  perfect  front,  we 


472  The  Christian  Festivals 

should  still  have  had  a  conflict,  but  it  would  have 
been  with  some  tremendous  uprising  of  the  much 
less  developed  races — perhaps  another  attempt  such 
as  Attila  made  to  overrun  Europe.  The  evil  would 
have  expressed  itself,  but  it  would  have  been  among 
the  backward  nations.  It  is  a  great  victory  for  the 
powers  that  stand  for  darkness  that  they  can  take 
a  nation  supposed  to  be  in  the  forefront  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  twist  that  to  their  ends. 

We  must  not  think  that  all  the  members  of  that 
nation  are  wicked  people.  We  must  not  let  our- 
selves be  brought  down  to  their  level.  They  have 
made  it  their  special  boast  to  set  up  a  stream  of 
hatred  towards  us,  to  compose  hymns  of  hate  and 
teach  them  to  the  innocent  school-children.  We  must 
not  be  led  away  into  such  foolishness  at  that.  We 
must  have  no  single  thought  of  hatred.  We  shall 
hear  of  the  most  terrible  things  being  done,  of  in- 
credible brutality  and  horror  on  their  part;  but  if 
we  wish  to  take  the  occult  point  of  view  we  must 
have  no  shadow  of  hatred  in  our  hearts  for  all  this, 
but  only  pity. 

The  tragedy  of  Belgium  has  horrified  the  world. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  most  terrible  things  that  the 
world  has  ever  known;  but  the  tragedy  of  the  moral 
downfall  of  Germany  is  greater  even  than  that — 
that  such  a  great  nation,  with  such  possibilities, 
should  sink  to  this.  That  is,  in  truth,  a  more  awful 
thing  to  see  than  all  the  pain  and  misery  of  countless 
ruined  homes.  That  a  race  which  produced  Goethe 
and  Schiller  should  so  fall  as  to  become  a  byword 
among  the  nations,  so  that  for  centuries  to  come 
all  decent  men  will  be  ashamed  of  any  connection 
with  it,  and  none  shall  speak  its  name  without  a 


The  Truth  about  the  G)ar  473 

shudder  of  horror   and  uttermost  loathing — surely 
that  is  a  tragedy  unequalled  since  the  world  began. 

Therefore  not  hatred,  but  pity  should  fill  our 
minds.  But  on  no  account  and  under  no  circum- 
stances must  our  pity  be  allowed  to  degenerate  into 
weakness,  or  to  interfere  with  our  absolute  firmness. 
We  stand  for  liberty,  for  right,  for  honour,  and 
for  the  keeping  of  the  pledged  word  of  the  nation, 
and  that  work  which  has  come  into  our  hands  must 
be  done,  and  it  must  be  done  thoroughly.  But  we 
must  do  it  because  we  stand  on  the  side  of  the 
Deity,  because  we  are  in  very  truth  the  Sword  of 
the  Lord,  because  this  is,  indeed,  a  holy  war,  in  a 
far  deeper  and  more  real  sense  than  were  the  Cru- 
sades of  old. 

Let  us  take  care  that  we  do  not  spoil  our  work 
and  our  attitude  by  such  an  unworthy  passion  as 
hatred.  We  do  not  hate  the  wild  beast  that  is  at- 
tacking our  children,  but  we  suppress  it.  We  do  not 
hate  a  mad  dog,  but  for  the  sake  of  humanity  we 
shoot  it.  We  do  not  hate  the  scorpion  we  tread 
under  foot,  but  we  tread  on  it  effectively.  We  do 
not  hate  a  lunatic;  we  are  sorry  for  him;  but  we 
defend  our  dear  ones  against  his  attack  with  un- 
flinching determination,  and  we  have  no  hesitation 
in  taking  whatever  steps  are  necessary  to  deprive 
him  of  the  power  to  do  further  harm. 

There  must  be  no  thought  of  hatred,  but  there 
must  be  no  weakness.  There  must  be  no  sickly  sen- 
timentality or  wavering.  There  are  those  who 
clamour  that  the  mad  dog  is  our  brother,  and  that 
it  is  unfraternal  to  shoot  him.  They  forget  that  the 
men  whom  his  bite  would  doom  to  an  awful  death 
are  also  our  brothers,  and  that  they  have  the  first 


474  The  Christian  Festivals 

claim  on  our  consideration.  Germany  is  the  mad 
dog  of  Europe,  and  must  be  suppressed  thoroughly 
and  at  all  costs.  "Therefore  fight,  0  Arjuna." 
Remember,  we  are  fighting  for  the  liberty  of  the 
world;  Germany  itself  is  a  part  of  that 
world,  and  we  are  fighting  to  free  Germany  from 
its  obsession.  These  German  soldiers  under  their 
present  obsession  are  not  men  but  fiends;  no  demon 
from  the  lowest  pit  of  the  imaginary  mediaeval  hells 
can  rejoice  in  bestial  cruelty  more  than  they.  The 
kindest  thing  that  we  can  do  for  them  is  to  destroy 
their  physical  bodies,  so  that  they  may  be  saved  from 
further  and  still  more  awful  crime,  that  the  devil- 
ridden  egos  may  be  set  free  after  their  appalling 
failure — (free  to  begin  again  to  climb  the  ladder  of 
evolution  from  the  depths  of  savagery  into  which 
they  have  allowed  their  lower  vehicles  to  be  cast. 

Let  us  have  that  well  in  our  minds,  and  we  shall 
begin  to  see  what  is  the  attitude  we  must  take  with 
regard  to  this  terrible  war;  and  if  we  do  our  duty 
unflinchingly  in  maintaining  that  attitude  we  shall 
make  the  final  settlement  infinitely  easier.  When 
this  is  over,  as  it  will  be  over  presently,  when  the 
struggle  is  of  the  past,  there  will  still  remain  the 
aftermath.  Those  among  the  Allies  who  have  hated 
will  find  their  hatred  turning  into  fiendish  glee  in 
their  victory;  but,  having  allowed  themselves  to  be 
turned  aside  from  the  true  view  of  the  struggle, 
those  people  will  be  in  no  condition  to  understand 
calmly  and  rationally  what  is  to  be  done.  It  is  only 
those  who  have  kept  their  heads,  who  have  shown 
themselves  philosophers,  but  nevertheless  puissant 
soldiers  to  stand  and  strike  for  the  right — it  is  only 


Gruth  about  the  G)ar  475 

they  who  will  be  able  to  judge  what  can  be  done, 
and  what  is  best  for  the  world. 

So  we  who  know  the  inner  facts  should  hold  a 
firm  and  steady  attitude,  and  not  allow  ourselves  to 
be  misled.  The  path  of  wisdom  is,  as  usual, 
a  razor  edge.  We  must  not  fall  over  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  though  we  have  to  face  fiendishness,  wick- 
edness, horror  such  as  the  world  has  never  known 
till  now;  we  must  have  neither  weakness  nor  vin- 
dietiveness,  but  a  grasp  of  the  real  reasons  for  it 
all,  and  of  what  it  is  that  is  really  happening. 

The  egos  that  have  been  swept  into  this  vortex 
of  hate  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  fight  will  come 
back  again;  they  will  recover.  It  is  indeed  a  ter- 
rible thing  to  throw  oneself  open  to  such  an  obses- 
sion. They  will  have  a  long  way  to  climb,  just  as 
had  those  who  went  wrong  in  Atlantis;  (but  thoii 
sands  of  those  who  were  on  the  wrong  side  in 
Atlantis  are  on  the  right  side  now,  and  that  is  an 
omen  of  great  hope  for  us.  The  world  has  advanced, 
otherwise  the  evil  would  win  again;  and  this  time 
it  will  not  win. 

So  our  attitude  must  be  one  of  unselfishness  and 
of  firm  attention  to  duty.  But  we  must  do  our  duty 
because  it  is  our  duty,  and  not  because  of  any  per- 
sonal feeling  of  hatred,  or  even  of  horror.  We  can- 
not but  feel  uttermost  loathing  at  the  awful  things 
that  have  been  done,  at  the  deliberate  way  in  which 
they  have  been  justified,  at  the  terrible  things  that 
have  been  said.  We  cannot  help  feeling  horror,  but 
nevertheless  we  must  try  to  hold  ourselves  steady, 
with  iron  determination  as  to  what  is  to  be  done,  but 
yet  with  readiness  when  all  this  is  over  to  take  once 
more  the  philosophical  point  of  view. 


476  The  Christian  Festivals 

The  Lord  who  is  to  come,  although  when  He  came 
last  time  He  said  to  His  people:  "I  come  not  to 
bring  peace  but  a  sword/'  is  nevertheless  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  the  Lord  of  Love  and  the  Lord  of  Life; 
and  when  love  and  life  and  peace  can  be  for  these 
people,  He  will  lead  them  into  love  and  life  and 
peace.  But  when  the  people  have  made  that  impos- 
sible for  themselves  for  this  incarnation,  when  these 
things  cannot  be  for  them,  then  will  the  other  side 
of  the  prophecy  come  true,  that  those  who  draw  the 
sword  will  perish  by  the  sword. 

In  the  midst  of  raging  selfishness  let  us  try  to 
live  in  utter  unselfishness;  let  us  be  full  of  trust, 
because  we  know;  however  dark  and  difficult  things 
may  be,  we  cling  to  the  certainty  that  evolution 
is  working.  We  went  down  in  that  great  conflict  in 
Atlantis,  and  yet  we  never  lost  our  faith  in  the 
final  triumph  of  good.  This  time  good  will  triumph 
even  in  the  outer  world;  but  remember,  victory  will 
be  achieved  only  by  the  greatest  effort,  by  the  most 
utter  determination,  and  the  most  thorough  federa- 
tion and  trust  among  the  people  who  are  chosen  to 
rule  the  world  and  to  do  the  work.  To  Germany 
also  a  great  opportunity  was  offered.  To  the  egos 
incarnated  there  an  opportunity  is  offered  even  now 
of  protest  and  of  martyrdom.  They  have  not  taken 
it  so  far,  but  there  may  yet  be  those  among  them 
who  will  take  it.  I  trust  and  hope  that  it  may  be 
so;  that  there  will  be  those  who  will  shake  off  the 
nightmare  of  obsession,  who  will  say:  "Kill  us  if 
you  willj  but  we  will  not  share  in  these  horrors; 
we  will  denounce  them."  Those  people  will  earn  a 
better  fate  than  their  fellow-countrymen. 


The  Truth  about  the  G)ar  477 

Let  us  take  it  all  as  part  of  the  development  of 
the  great  world.  That  war  is  an  awful  thing,  wrong 
and  wicked  in  itself,  none  can  doubt;  also  that  it 
is  an  utterly  irrational  way  of  deciding  a  disputed 
point.  The  karma  of  the  man  who  provokes  a  war 
is  more  appalling  than  the  human  mind  can  con- 
ceive. But  for  those  upon  whom  it  is  forced,  as  it 
has  in  this  case  been  forced  upon  us,  it  is  clearly  the 
lesser  of  two  evils.  Since  it  had  to  be,  Those  who 
stand  behind  and  direct  the  evolution  of  the  world 
are  unquestionably  utilizing  it  for  great  and  high 
purposes,  and  thus  wringing  good  out  of  the  very 
heart  of  ill.  Horrific  as  it  is,  it  has  yet  lifted  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  people  clear  out  of  them- 
selves, out  of  their  petty  parochialism  into  world- 
wide sympathy,  out  of  selfishness  into  the  loftiest 
altruism — lifted  them  into  the  region  of  the  ideal. 
It  has  raised  them  at  one  stroke  more  than  many 
lives  under  ordinary  conditions  would  raise  a  man. 

We  know  how  nobly  people  have  thrown  away 
their  lives — not  even  for  their  country  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word.  Rememfber  that  we  were 
not  in  immediate  danger,  though  that  would  inevit- 
ably have  come  later.  It  was  not  self-defence;  it 
was  the  honour  of  the  flag;  it  was  the  name  of  Eng- 
land ;  the  sacredness  of  a  promise ;  the  duty  of  stand- 
ing by  the  weak  and  defending  them  against  bru- 
tality. It  was  for  an  ideal  in  the  truest  and  noblest 
sense  of  the  word  that  our  fellow-countrymen  have 
shed  their  blood,  and  just  because  they  gav«  to  the 
uttermost  that  which  they  had  to  give,  they  have  by 
that  very  act  raised  themselves  greatly  in  the  scale 
of  humanity.  The  ordinary  man  has  not  usually  any 
opportunity  for  a  splendid  effort  such  as  this.  It 


478  6he  Christian  Festivals 

is  true  that  wonderful  and  beautiful  self-sacrifice  is 
often  shown  by  individuals  in  ordinary  life:  a  man 
will  give  up  all  his  hopes  and  ambitions  to  minister 
to  some  relation  who  is  weak  and  ailing;  but  still 
such  chances  come  only  here  and  there.  I  suppose 
nothing  else  than  a  colossal  war  could  have  offered 
an  opportunity  for  so  splendid  an  outburst  from  so 
many  simultaneously. 

Remember  that  unselfish  and  awakened  egos  are 
needed  at  this  very  moment  for  the  Sixth  Sub-Race, 
which  is  beginning  most  prominently  in  America 
and  Australasia.  Perhaps  there  was  no  other  way 
to  get  them  in  sufficient  numbers  and  in  a  sufficiently 
short  time,  except  through  some  great  world-conflict. 
Be  thankful  that  we,  at  least,  are  on  the  right  side 
in  this.  Be  thankful,  you  who  send  to  this  great 
war  those  whom  you  love,  that  the  opportunity  has 
come  to  them  thus  to  advance  themselves  in  one 
incarnation  more  than  otherwise  they  could  have 
done  in  a  score  of  lives.  You  have  sorrow  and  suf- 
fering and  pain  as  your  share;  but  you  are  offering 
that  suffering  for  the  freedom  of  the  world ;  you  who 
send  the  soldier  are  thereby  also  taking  your  part 
in  the  fight,  and  the  very  sorrow  and  pain  through 
which  you  pass  is  lifting  you,  just  as  his  devotion 
to  duty  has  lifted  him.  Many  of  those  who  die  will 
be  worthy  of  birth  in  the  new  Sub-Race,  but  so 
also  will  be  many  of  the  women  who  have  bravely 
sent  forth  their  nearest  and  dearest  to  answer  to 
their  country's  call.  They  have  gdven  up  husband 
or  son  or  brother.  They  win  the  advantage  by  that 
noble  sacrifice  just  as  much  as  the  men  who  go  and 
stand  in  the  firing-line. 


The  Truth  about  the  War  479 

There  are  many  who  cannot  for  one  reason  or 
another  go  and  fight,  though  I  hold  very  strongly 
that  everyone  who  can  should  do  so.  But  we  can 
all  do  something  to  help.  Some  of  us  are  too  old 
to  fight  ourselves — or  so  the  Government  thinks:  but 
at  least  we  can  take  up  the  work  of  some  younger 
man  and  set  him  free  to  go.  That  I  have  done 
myself.  So  all  may  bear  their  share  in  this.  All 
can  help,  and  furthermore,  all  must  help ;  certainly 
all  should  be  on  the  side  of  the  right  in  a  matter 
like  this,  and  all  should  do  whatever  they  can  to 
help  in  any  one  of  the  many  indirect  ways  that  are 
possible. 

We  are  all  trying,  so  far  as  may  be,  to  prepare 
for  the  coming  of  the  Great  Teacher.  Realize  that 
this  great  war  is  part  of  the  world  preparation,  and 
that,  however  terrible  it  may  be,  there  is  yet  the 
other  side — the  enormous  good  that  is  being  done  to 
individuals.  Perhaps  in,  the  distant  future  when  we 
come  to  look  back  upon  it  all  with  greater  knowledge 
and  with  wider  purview,  we  shall  see  that  the  good 
has  outweighed  all  the  frightful  evil,  and  that  though 
the  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  new,  it  is 
only  that  God  may  fulfil  Himself  in  many  ways. 


CHAPTEE  XXX 

ON  THE  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  OUTBREAK 
OF  WAR. 

A  day  has  been  appointed  for  what  is  called  inter- 
cession in  connection  with  the  great  world-war.  We 
who  belong  to  the  Liberal  Catholic  Church  assuredly 
wish  to  take  our  part  in  all  loyal  activities,  but  in 
this  case  we  shall  have  to  do  it  in  some  way  a  little 
differently  from  the  other  branches  of  the  Church, 
because  we  do  not  pray  in  that  sense  at  all.  We 
do  not  think  ourselves  competent  to  tell  God  what 
He  ought  to  do;  we  do  not  think  that  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  constantly  to  be  asking  Him  to  do  some- 
thing or  other  in  connection  with  us.  We  should 
consider  such  an  attitude  as  showing  a  great  lack 
both  of  faith  and  knowledge.  It  is  surely  obvious 
that  to  ask  God  to  do  this  or  that  implies  one  of 
two  things — either  that  we  have  to  persuade  Him  to 
do  something  which  otherwise  He  would  not  do,  or 
else  that  we  have  to  remind  Him  of  something  which 
He  would  otherwise  forget.  We  do  not  cast  such 
slurs  upon  our  heavenly  Father.  I  am  aware,  and 
I  am  thankful  that  it  is  so,  that  many  people  when 
they  talk  about  prayer  really  mean  something  like 
the  higher  meditation.  They  mean  that  they  want 
to  raise  themselves  into  communion  with  God — that 
the  God  within  shall  rise  to  realize  and  become  one 
with  the  God  without.  Nothing  can  be  more  estim- 
able than  that,  nothing  can  be  better  for  them;  but 
to  ask  Him  to  do  this  or  that  implies  that  we  know 
better  than  He  what  is  best  for  us,  or  for  the  world. 

480 


The  Outbreak  of  War  481 

We  know  that  God  is  already  doing  all  that  can  be 
done  in  every  way  for  the  whole  human  race.  How- 
ever little  we  at  our  lower  level  may  be  able  to  see 
and  to  understand,  be  sure  that  that  is  true  even 
in  this  awful  war.  I  am  not  minimizing  its  horrors 
in  the  least.  Perhaps  I  know  more  about  them  than 
many  do,  because  it  is  my  duty  astrally  to  visit 
these  battle-fields  and  try  to  hedp.  I  know  that  all 
we  have  heard  (and  that  has  been  dreadful  enough) 
is  not  half  of  the  crime  that  those  fiends  have  com- 
mitted; that  the  atrocities  of  which  we  read  in  the 
newspapers  are  as  nothing  to  the  atrocities  which 
have  really  been  perpetrated;  and  yet,  knowing  all 
that,  I  still  say  that  God  knows  very  well  what  He 
is  doing,  and  that  He  is  training  both  us  and  our 
enemies;  for  after  all  these  incredibly  diabolical 
criminals  wear  the  human  form,  even  though  they 
disgrace  it,  even  though  they  are  at  the  lowest  and 
most  savage  stage  of  evolution. 

I  am  stating  facts  based  on  knowledge  and  not 
on  supposition  when  I  say  that  it  is  actually  a  kind- 
ness to  these  ruffians  to  kill  their  bodies,  for  in  that 
way  we  save  their  souls  from  this  madness;  we 
actually  help  in  carrying  out  the  training  which  will 
show  them  that  they  must  not  again  let  themselves 
be  misled  and  hypnotized  as  they  have  been  this 
time.  We  must  face  the  fact  that  the  present  genera- 
tion of  our  enemies  is  not  composed  of  at  all  the 
same  type  of  egos  that  used  to  inhabit  that  nation. 
They  are  simply  dangerous  wild  beasts  who  must  be 
sent  back  into  the  savage  tribes  to  which  they  be- 
long. That  may  sound  harsh  to  some  who  do  not 
understand  the  inner  meaning  of  what  is  happen- 
ing; yet  it  is  true.  They  are  obsessed,  and  therefore 


482  The  Christian  Festivals 

not  in  all  cases  fully  responsible  on  the  physical 
plane;  ibut  they  are  responsible  for  being  liable  to 
obsession;  they  must  learn  their  lesson.  In  their 
pride  they  will  not  learn  by  reason,  and  therefore 
they  are  being  taught  by  the  terrible  national 
calamity  which  is  already  overhanging  them. 

We  do  not  pray  with  regard  to  this  matter;  yet 
we  can  join  heartily  in  this  celebration,  for  as  sub- 
jects of  our  King-Emperor,  as  citizens  of  this  great 
British  Empire,  we  have  on  this  anniversary  cause 
for  great  thankfulness.  This  day  four  years  ago 
our  country  of  England  entered  this  war.  We  have 
reason  for  thankfulness  that  in  spite  of  well-mean- 
ing but  ignorant  fanatics  who  talked  peace  at  any 
price,  in  spite  of  the  spirit  of  commercialism,  and 
in  spite  of  the  natural  shrinking  from  suffering  and 
from  horror,  England  was  wise  enough  to  choose  her 
side  in  this  great  world-war — wise  enough  to  see  her 
duty  and  bold  enough  to  do  it;  and  that  she  has 
had  the  courage  and  determination  to  endure.  So 
must  she  endure  to  the  end,  for  we  have  the  highest 
authority  for  the  saying  that  he  that  endureth  unto 
the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved. 

There  is  an  aspect  of  this  terrible  war  that  may 
perhaps  be  new  to  us.  We  have  thought  of  its 
horror;  we  have  thought  of  its  loss;  that  has  been 
brought  home  closely  and  terribly  to  many  of  us. 
We  have  the  idea,  most  of  us.  that  it  is  a  struggle 
between  right  and  wrong;  but  we  may  not  have 
thought  of  it  as  an  unparalleled  opportunity.  First, 
certainly,  for  the  soldiers,  for  those  who  are  able  to 
go  and  fight.  They  risk  their  lives  for  their  coun- 
try, but  how  can  man  die  more  nobly  than  that? 
To  die  thus  is  to  gain,  for  by  that  one  supreme  act 


The  Outbreak  of  War  483 

of  self -sacrifice  they  make  advancement  which  other- 
wise might  take  ^hem  twenty  lives.  The  soldiers 
differ  greatly;  some  of  them  are  educated  men  of 
high  ideals,  and  others  are  perhaps  much  less  de- 
veloped; but  all  have  the  one  magnificent  quality 
of  devotion  to  an  ideal.  They  die  for  the  sake  of 
what  is  after  all  an  abstraction  to  them — their  coun- 
try, the  right,  the  cause  of  justice;  but  that  one 
quality  (and  the  fact  that  they  have  proved  their 
belief  to  be  real  by  the  greatest  sacrifice  that  any 
man  on  the  physical  plane  can  make)  will  carry 
them  far,  and  will  fit  them  for  the  instruction  now 
being  given  to  them  in  the  astral  world.  That  will 
bring  them  back  into  life  at  a  level  far  higher  than 
that  at  which  they  left  it. 

Assuredly  everyone  who  can  ought  to  fight;  there 
ought  to  be  not  one  single  eligible  person  who  is  not 
taking  up  his  cross  and  following  his  Master.  But 
there  are  some  who  are  physically  unable  to  go ; 
yet  for  them  also  the  war  is  an  opportunity.  Every- 
one can  do  something,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
man,  woman  and  child  to  find  a  way  to  do  something ; 
some  direct  work  if  possible.  There  are  the  women 
who  knit  socks ;  there  are  those  who  save  in  order  to 
be  able  to  help  with  money,  who  deny  themselves  in 
various  ways  to  do  that;  there  are  those  who  do 
Red  Cross  work.  All  that  is  good  and  as  it  should 
be.  Certainly  under  these  circumstances,  and  in  this 
emergency,  any  person  who  spends  money  on  sport 
and  fine  clothes,  on  drink  or  horseracing,  any  man 
who  strikes  and  refuses  to  do  his  work  for  petty 
personal  reasons  in  order  that  he  should  work  a 
few  hours  less  or  receive  higher  wages — such  a  man 
is  a  traitor  to  G-od  and  to  his  country,  and  his  action 


484  The  Christian  Festivals 

is  a  scandal  and  a  crying  shame.  It  shows  an  utter 
lack  of  appreciation;  it  shows  a  feck  both  of  intel- 
lect and  of  heart.  We  must  regretfully  admit  that 
many  people  are  still  as  undeveloped  as  this.  We 
cannot  help  it;  we  have  to  face  that  unpleasant  fact. 
It  is  a  proof  of  their  brutal  selfishness  and  of  their 
blindness  to  the  meaning  of  events.  The  karma  of 
this  brutishness  will  be  heavy;  but  what  one  feels 
most  is  the  pity  of  it  all — that  they  do  not  see,  that 
they  do  not  know.  Christ  said  over  Jerusalem  long 
ago:  "If  thou  hadst  but  known,  at  least  in  this  thy 
day,  the  things  that  belong  unto  thy  peace!  but  now 
they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes." 

This  is  one  of  God's  periodical  examinations  of 
His  people,  to  see  how  the  world  stands.  He  gives 
them  this  wonderful  opportunity;  who  will  rise  to 
it?  who  will  take  it?  Who  will  rise  superior  to  the 
obvious  'appeal  of  the  body  for  ease  and  comfort, 
the  appeal  of  the  lower  mind  to  forget  all  about 
these  horrors?  Some  people  here  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world  still  live  in  all  sorts  of  foolishness,  sport 
and  self-gratification.  We  in  this  Church  have  the 
privilege  of  deeper  knowledge  than  many ;  shall  we 
then  fail  Him  Who  has  given  us  that  knowledge  ?  We 
must  stand  boldly  against  the  insidious  treachery  and 
treason  which  veils  itself  under  fair  names,  and  tries 
to  make  us  apply  to  this  extraordinary  time  of  trial 
apophthegms  which  would  be  right  and  reasonable 
in  ordinary  times.  They  say  that  we  should  be  for- 
bearing rather  than  fight,  that  we  should  give  up 
things  rather  than  enter  into  a  contest.  Ordinarily 
we  have  the  right  to  give  up  for  the  sake  of  peace 
that  which  concerns  ourselves  alone,  but  when  right 
and  wrong  are  met  in  open  conflict  we  have  no  right 


The  Outbreak  of  War  485 

to  stand  aside  and  say  that  it  does  not  concern  us. 
Now  is  the  time  to  quit  ourselves  like  men  and  fight, 
as  the  apostle  tells  us;  if  not  in  one  way,  then  in 
another.  If  we  cannot  go  out  and  take  weapons  in 
our  hands,  we  can  give  money,  some  of  us,  and 
others  can  give  time  and  work.  If  we  cannot  fight 
with  our  hands,  we  can  fight  with  our  voices  and 
our  pens,  teaching  the  ignorant  and  rousing  the 
selfish;  but  at  least  each  can  do  something;  and  he 
who  neglects  the  opportunity  to  do  something  will 
regret  his  failure  to  see  the  light  through  many  lives 
to  come. 

It  is  very  rarely  in  the  world's  history  that  God 
makes  a  clear  issue  like  this  between  good  and  evil. 
In  nearly  all  wars  there  is  something  to  be  said  on 
both  sides;  there  is  misunderstanding  which  might 
be  removed.  Here  is  no  misunderstanding;  here  is 
the  clear  issue — freedom,  right  to  develop  as  God 
means  us  to  develop  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  a  soulless  tyranny  which  seeks  only  to  crush 
out  all  individuality.  The  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  God's  plan  for  men.  Therefore  we  are 
fighting  on  His  side;  therefore  everyone  of  us  must 
take  some  share  in  that  work.  Happy  indeed  are 
they  who  can  give  their  lives;  but  if  we  cannot  all 
do  that,  then  at  least  let  us  be  doing  what  we  can. 
Only  let  us  be  sure  of  this  one  thing,  that  we  are 
on  God's  side;  that  we  stand  for  Him.  Do  not  let 
us  stand  aside  and  say  it  does  not  make  any  dif- 
ference to  us  personally  who  wins.  That  is  crass 
selfishness  and  blindness.  It  may  not  immediately 
affect  your  daily  pence,  or  the  amount  of  food  or 
clothing  you  obtain,  though  it  would  assuredly  affect 
that  presently  if  the  evil  were  to  triumph.  It  will 


486  The  Christian  Festivals 

not  triumph;  we  know  that;  but  there  is  something 
we  do  not  know — who  will  help  in  the  triumph  that 
is  coming,  and  who  will  stand  aside  and  take  no 
part,  saying  that  he  does  not  want  to  take  the 
trouble.  It  is  hard  to  believe  it,  but  there  may  be 
some  so  lost  to  decency  and  manliness  as  to  say  even 
that.  In  the  future  under  the  unerring  divine  jus- 
tice each  man  will  receive  the  reward  he  has  earned; 
we  who  know  a  little  more  than  many,  through  our 
study  of  the  inner  side  of  life,  have  a  responsibility 
connected  with  that  knowledge.  We  know  the  truth; 
the  truth  shall  make  us  free — free  from  prejudices, 
free  from  selfishness,  able  to  see  and  able  to  take  our 
part  on  the  side  of  God  Himself. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

ON  GOD'S  SIDE 

At  all  times,  since  we  are  human,  there  is  going 
on  round  us  a  struggle  between  good  and  evil.  There 
are  those — both  men  and  other  entities  to  which 
often  we  give  the  vague  name  of  " forces" — who 
are  striving  for  evolution;  and  there  are  also  those 
who,  blindly  and  in  ignorance,  but  none  the  less 
really,  are  striving  against  it.  So  we  find  that  there 
is  a  constant  struggle  goin^  on  within  ourselves  and 
round  about  us. 

In  ordinary  life  that  struggle  conies  before  us,  I 
think,  in  two  different  ways.  First,  personally  and 
with  regard  to  ourselves.  We  find  that  we  have  to 
maintain  a  constant  fight  against  what  we  call  our 
lower  nature.  It  is  not  in  reality  ourselves  at  all; 
it  is  only  the  instinctive  elemental  consciousness  in 
one  of  our  lower  vehicles;  but  still  there  is  a  per- 
petual contest  going  on,  so  that  if  we  wish  to  develop 
the  good  within  ourselves,  and  to  repress  the  evil 
within  and  about  us,  we  must  keep  up  a  constant 
effort  to  do  so. 

Secondly,  we  are  constantly  struggling  against 
public  evils.  We  try  to  combat  drunkenness  and 
disease;  we  try  to  restrain  the  selfishness  of  our 
fellowmen,  which  is  constantly  interfering  with  the 
welfare  of  the  community.  These  are  ways  in  which 
in  ordinary  times  we  can  take  our  part  in  the  con- 
test between  good  and  evil.  We  range  ourselves 
definitely  on  G-od's  side;  we  recognize  that  evolution 
is  His  will,  and  that  we  also  are  part  of  Him. 

487 


488  The  Christian  Festivals 

The  more  we  can  realize  the  fact  that  we  are  divine 
in  essence,  the  more  truly  shall  we  be  able  to  take 
our  due  part  in  this  struggle. 

In  this  daily  effort  of  ordinary  life  we  have  to  a 
large  extent  to  make  opportunities  for  ourselves; 
we  have  to  look  carefully  round  and  see  what  we 
can  do;  but  always  we  must  be  working  on  God's 
side  in  some  way  or  other.  Sometimes  in  the  world's 
history,  but  only  rarely,  great  crises  occur  when  the 
forces  of  evil  come  out  in^o  the  open  and  try  to 
overcome,  to  overwhelm  the  world;  when  they  try 
to  persuade  a  whole  body  of  men  to  espouse  their 
cause,  and  to  say  frankly  to  themselves:  "Evil,  be 
thou  my  good."  Now  when  that  happens,  those  who 
are  on  earth  at  the  moment  have  an  unequalled  op- 
portunity of  magnificent  devotion;  some  of  them 
may  even  have  the  opportunity  of  the  extreme  sac- 
rifice, of  offering  up  life  itself. 

Such  a  crisis  as  that  has  come  to  the  world  now — 
now  after  many  centuries,  for  some  twelve  thousand 
years  have  elapsed  since  there  was  a  like  occasion ;  sc 
we  must  try  to  understand  exactly  what  is  happening. 
The  opportunity  which  has  been  offered  sometimes 
to  individual  martyrs,  of  giving  up  their  life  for 
the  sake  of  the  truth  rather  than  bowing  down  be- 
fore evil  or  wrong,  is  exactly  that  which  comes  now 
to  thousands  upon  thousands  of  men  and  women— 
a  chance  to  stand  for  the  right  and  to  take  up  a 
position  on  God's  side,  even  to  the  very  uttermost, 
even  to  the  sacrifice  of  life  itself. 

When  at  these  rare  intervals  that  great  call  comes, 
it  would  be  unspeakably  foolish  not  to  take  advantage 
of  it,  to  lose  the  immense  amount  of  good  karma  that 
may  comparatively  quickly  be  made  by  standing  at 


Or  God's  Side  489 

all  costs  for  the  right.  More  than  that,  any  one 
who  fails  to  take  that  opportunity  becomes  recreant 
and  coward  before  the  God  Who  made  him. 
Happy,  indeed,  are  they  who  are  of  such  age  and 
health  and  position  that  they  can  enlist,  and  go 
forth  and  bear  a  direct  part  in  the  fight.  Shame- 
ful beyond  all  words  is  their  action  if,  being  so  able, 
they  turn  their  backs  upon  God  and  are  cowards 
before  His  face;  for  that  is  what  such  action  is,  and 
it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  gloss  it  over  by  specious 
falsehoods.  The  women  have  their  part  to  play  too. 
As  things  are  now  they  cannot  well  go  out  and 
take  arms  in  their  hands,  though  in  the  last  resource 
they  have  even  had  to  do  that  sometimes;  but  they 
can  willingly,  even  joyfully,  send  fortii  those  whom 
they  love  to  make  that  stupendous  sacrifice;  and  be 
sure  that  they  who  do  that  are  just  as  much  earning 
their  part  of  the  good  karma,  are  just  as  much  fight- 
ing on  God's  side,  as  the  men  whom  they  send.  If 
it  were  possible  to  conceive  that  there  would  be  a 
woman  sunk  so  low  as  to  wish  to  hold  back  her 
man  from  such  a  glorious  opportunity,  she  would 
fall  under  the  condemnation  of  the  man  who  fears 
to  go.  Such  there  will  not  be  among  us,  I  hope  and 
believe.  If  to  our  lasting  shame  as  a  nation  there 
should  be  any  cowards  among  us,  it  must  be  because 
such  men  and  such  women  are  still  at  a  very  low 
stage  of  evolution — are  incapable  yet  of  understand- 
ing that  this  is  a  grand  and  wonderful  opportunity, 
and  that  the  risk  of  mere  personal  suffering  cannot 
weigh  for  a  moment  against  God's  need  for  His 
people  in  this  struggle. 

I   know  what   horrible   suffering   awaits   many   of 
those  who  go  forth  to  fight.     I  know,  too,  how  those 


490  The  Christian  Festivals 

suffer  who  wait  at  home,  longing  for  news  and  yet 
afraid  of  it  when  it  shall  come.  If  this  one  life 
were  all,  if  there  were  nothing  beyond  this,  I  think 
we  could  almost  understand  that  there  might  be 
those  who  fear  to  make  the  sacrifice.  But  we  all 
know — somehow  blindly  and  instinctively,  I  think 
almost  everyone  knows — that  this  life  is  not  all — 
that  there  is  a  grander  and  more  glorious  future, 
and  that  they  who  do  their  duty  now  even  to  the 
uttermost  shall  see  the  result  of  their  work  and  be 
satisfied  in  that  higher  life  which  lies  before  us. 
In  other  lives  than  this  we  shall  come  back  to  a 
world  which  we  have  helped  to  purify  and  to  make 
better,  and  because  evolution  is  God's  will,  so  is  it 
also  His  will  in  His  lovingkindness  to  give  an  oppor- 
tunity to  those  who  have  fought  for  Him  now  to 
help  prominently,  wonderfully,  in  that  future  work. 
We  can  all  help  every  day  and  all  day  long  in  small 
ways,  but  those  to  whom  there  comes  such  an  oppor- 
tunity as  this  can  make  further  progress  by  that 
one  supreme  act  of  taking  it  than  they  would  have 
made  in  many  lives  of  more  ordinary  work. 

Terrible,  dreadful  beyond  words,  horrible,  cruel, 
wicked  as  is  such  a  war  as  this,  yet  there  is  some- 
thing of  compensation.  By  means  of  passing 
through  that  furnace  of  affliction  the  world  will 
evolve  more  rapidly  than  otherwise  it  could  have 
done,  and  those  who  take  their  part  in  that  war  now 
will  be  the  leaders  in  that  work  hereafter.  Not 
only  do  they  gain  a  rapid  rebirth  in  that  new  Sub- 
race  which  is  now  beginning  to  appear  here  among 
us,  but  also  they  are  themselves  greatly  uplifted  by 
the  tremendous  effort  which  they  have  made.  Many 


On  Gods  Side  491 

small  efforts  through  many  lives  would  perhaps 
equal  it,  but  here  is  the  opportunity  to  do  at  one 
stroke  that  which  otherwise  would  occupy  a  very 
long  time  indeed. 

We  cannot  all  actually  go  and  fight,  but  we  can 
all  help  in  some  little  way,  in  money  or  in  service, 
in  making  things  easier  for  those  who  can  do  what 
we  cannot.  No  matter  though  it  is  little  that  we 
can  do,  so  long  as  it  is  all  that  we  can  give.  Be 
very  sure  that  no  effort  is  lost.  Those  who  have 
died  are  just  as  truly  martyrs  in  God's  cause  as 
ever  were  any  of  the  great  saints  whose  days  are 
kept  <by  the  Church,  and  their  reward  is  immediate 
and  great  progress.  The  same  reward  comes  to  those 
who  have  willingly  sent  them  forth  and  blessed  them 
on  their  way. 

We  owe  a  great  debt  to  those  who  have  gone: 
and  whether  they  be  dead  or  living,  we  can  help 
them  by  our  love  and  our  thought.  We  are  not 
helpless,  we  are  not  without  resource.  Every  day 
we  help  them  as  we  send  out  loving  thought  toward 
them ;  we  strengthen  and  comfort  them  most  of  all 
when  such  loving  thought  is  offered  along  with 
the  sacrifice  of  the  holy  Eucharist,  which  Christ 
Himself  has  ordained  as  the  supreme  method  of 
helping  His  people. 

Let  us  one  and  all  take  our  places  on  God's  side 
and  do  something  definite  to  help  in  some  way.  It 
is  for  each  man  and  his  own  conscience  to  say  what 
he  can  do,  and  how  much  he  can  do.  That  no  man 
can  dictate  to  him,  but  at  least  he  must  see  to  it 
that,  when  this  struggle  between  good  and  evil  is 
over,  it  is  not  to  be  said  of  him  that  he  failed  to 


492  The  Christian  Festivals 

give  aid  to  God.  I  hope  there  may  be  very  few  of 
whom  eventually  that  will  be  said;  yet  one  cannot 
but  feel  grave  misgiving  when  one  looks  round  and 
sees  how  little  in  this  favoured  country  the  people 
seem  to  know  or  understand  of  what  is  taking 
place.  It  is  disgraceful,  but  I  believe  it  is  rather 
ignorance  than  selfishness.  At  least  one  clings  to 
that  hope;  so  that  whatever  it  be  that  we  can  do, 
any  of  us — either  directly  ourselves  to  help,  or  to 
persuade  others  who  should  be  helping  directly  to 
give  themselves  or  their  goods,  or  whatsoever  they 
can  give — that  thing  I  think  we  should  do  in  God's 
name  and  for  Christ's  most  holy  sake. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 
THE  FUTURE 

An  armistice  has  been  signed;  the  terrible  world- 
itruggle  is  drawing  to  an  end;  the  horror  of  the 
war  at  its  worst  is  over,  and  victory  lies  with  the 
cause  of  right.  In  almost  every  war  between  nations 
which  have  any  pretence  to  civilization,  each  side 
claims  to  be  in  the  right;  but  here,  more  clearly  than 
in  any  other  case  in  history — except  perhaps  in  such 
invasions  as  those  of  Attila,  when  Asiatic  hordes 
tried  to  sweep  over  Europe,  or  in  the  atrocious  attack 
of  the  Spaniards  upon  peaceful  races  in  Mexico  and 
Peru — there  is  a  definite  right  and  wrong  as  to  which 
no  unprejudiced  person  can  possibly  have  any  doubt. 
The  very  method  in  which  the  war  has  been  waged 
on  each  side,  and  the  acknowledged  objects  of  each 
of  the  combatants,  show  us  that  this  for  once  is  a 
clearly-marked  struggle  between  the  forces  of  good 
and  the  forces  of  evil. 

We  who  have  studied  these  inner  matters  must 
try  to  take  this  higher  view,  must  realize  that, 
dreadful  as  the  suffering  has  been,  yet  there  is  a 
side  to  it  which  is  not  all  bad.  For  the  struggle 
had  to  come,  and  the  right  has  won ;  and  opportunity 
has  been  taken  to  pay  off  masses  of  karma  which 
otherwise  would  have  had  to  be  spread  over  many 
lives.  So,  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  evolu- 
tion as  a  whole,  and  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  this 
ghastly  holocaust  has  its  purpose,  and  is  good  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  that  a  surgical  operation  is  good 

493 


494  &he  Christian  Festivals 

when  it  is  absolutely  necessary.  It  is  a  formidable 
thing  at  the  best,  and  it  means  a  vast  amount  of 
suffering  and  anxiety,  and  yet  it  is  often  the  only 
way ;  and  this  is  just  such  a  case  as  that. 

We  have  good  reason  to  celebrate  the  peace  when 
it  comes  to  us,  and  I  suppose  it  will  not  be  long  now. 
But  when  we  have  won  our  peace,  when  we  have 
defeated  the  enemies  of  evolution,  what  are  we  go- 
ing to  do  then?  The  world  will  have  to  be  carried 
on;  and  the  work  must  be  done  under  serious  diffi- 
culties for  a  good  many  years  to  come.  One  cannot 
kill  millions  of  the  best  of  all  the  leading  races,  one 
cannot  destroy  vast  amounts  of  shipping  and  enor- 
mous quantities  of  goods  and  produce  and  machinery 
and  everything  that  we  need  for  life,  without  pro- 
ducing convulsion,  without  upsetting  the  order  of 
life;  and  we  cannot  put  it  all  right  again  in  a  day 
by ,  signing  a  document.  We  shall  have  to  live 
under  the  shadow  of  this  great  war  for  some  time 
to  come,  and  we  shall  have  to  carry  on  evolution 
from  this  particular  point  where  the  war  has  left 
it.  Conditions  are  very  different  in  every  country 
from  what  they  were  before  the  war.  They  are  less 
changed  here  in  Australia  than  in  England,  because 
we  happen  to  be  at  the  other  side  of  the  world,  and 
so  are  out  of  the  centre  of  the  struggle;  only  the 
fringes  of  the  great  storm-cloud  have  touched  us, 
but  nevertheless  even  here  there  is  a  tremendous  op- 
portunity opening  before  us,  as  it  is  opening  before 
all  the  nations  of  the  world ;  and  the  most  important 
question  now  is  whether  we  are  all  going  to  take  it. 

How  have  we  won  this  war,  we,  the  Allies?  We 
have  won  it  by  standing  together;  we  have  won  it 


The  Future  495 

by  subordinating  every  other  consideration  to  that 
great  question  of  right  and  wrong;  we  have  had  to 
put  everything  else  aside  in  order  that  we  might  win 
it;  and  because  at  first  we  did  not  all  of  us  do  that, 
we  came  near  to  losing  in  the  beginning.  The  vic- 
tory at  first  lay  all  with  our  foes,  for  they  had  forty 
years  of  preparation  behind  them — forty  years  of 
rigid  organization,  forty  years  of  the  most  amazing 
falsehood,  intrigue  and  treachery  that  have  even 
been  heard  of  in  history — intrigue  in  every  country 
of  the  world.  All  this  perfidy  had  been  going  on, 
and  we,  innocent  and  unprepared,  suffered  for 
our  lack  of  preparation.  And  at  first,  because 
we  were  many  countries,  and  each  country  worked 
along  its  own  line,  we  were  not  brilliantly  success- 
ful. Glorious  bravery  was  shown,  but  not  much  co- 
ordination. There  have  been  great  men  who  drilled 
the  nations  into  unity  until  (but  only  quite  lately) 
all  of  these  different  Allies  are  absolutely  working 
as  one  nation  under  one  Commander-in-Chief.  The 
moment  that  was  done,  victory  began  to  come  our 
way. 

The  great  lesson  of  this  war,  when  we  come  to  look 
back  on  it,  is  first  that  we  must  all  be  ready,  as 
the  heroes  have  been,  each  in  our  way  to  sacrifice 
ourselves,  and  all  our  personal  thoughts,  feelings  and 
wishes,  for  the  good  of  all.  Not  in  war  only,  but 
in  peace  must  we  learn  this  unselfishness,  must  we 
learn  to  attain  a  condition  in  which  we  think  first 
not  of  ourselves,  not  of  our  own  family,  not  of  our 
own  class,  as  it  is  called  (hateful  though  the  word 
is),  but  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  A  section 
of  the  people  here  is  trying,  I  see  (and  I  see  it  with 


FF 


496  The  Christian  Festivals 

great  regret),  to  revive  what  in  such  a  country  as 
this  you  should  have  absolutely  conquered — the  class 
feeling,  the  idea  that  the  capitalist  is  necessarily  the 
enemy  of  the  labourer,  and  the  labourer  of  the 
capitalist.  There  has  been  great  excuse  for  that 
attitude  in  older  countries — great  excuse,  when  we 
hear  of  the  sweating,  the  ill-treatment,  the  under- 
payment, and  the  appalling  overworking  of  the 
labouring  classes;  but  surely  here  in  this  country 
that  is  the  one  thing  from  which  we  ought  to  be 
free.  "Where  all  stand  equal  before  the  State  as  far 
as  votes  go,  there  is  an  unparalleled  opportunity  for 
us  to  show  that  what  are  called  classes  need  not,  as 
such,  exist  at  all.  There  must  be  those  who  provide 
the  brains  and  those  who  provide  the  manual 
labour;  but  their  interests  in  the  ultimate  are  one 
and  the  same;  and  we  must  try  to  go  back  to  those 
ultimate  interests — not  to  raise  into  prominence 
petty  little  points  of  difference,  but  to  penetrate 
behind  those  to  the  greater  considerations  which  are 
interests  for  us  all. 

We  must  return  to  the  condition  which  Lord 
Macaulay  describes  as  existing  in  ancient  Rome: 

Then  none  was  for  a  party; 

Then  all  were  for  the  State; 
Then  the  rich  man  helped  the  poor, 

And  the  poor  man  loved  the  great. 

That  is  the  first  thing  that  we  must  learn — the 
necessity  of  co-operation,  the  necessity  of  Brother- 
hood— the  taking  of  the  wide  view  that  shall  embrace 
the  whole,  and  not  the  mere  personal  view  that  looks 
only  as  far  as  it  can  reach  with  its  hands.  It  is 
going  to  be  very  hard  for  people  to  forsake  their 


The  Future  497 

old  party  shibboleths,  for  them  to  give  up  the  atti- 
tude into  which  by  the  enemy  they  have  been  sedu- 
lously persuaded — 'because  more  and  more,  as  we 
look  into  it,  is  it  clear  that  the  difficulties  and 
troubles  and  disputes  have  been  promoted  every- 
where by  German  gold  and  by  German  influence. 
It  has  crippled  us  sadly;  surely  we  shall  not  be  so 
foolish  as  to  let  a  trace  of  that  evil  work  remain. 

Surely  now  we  shall  learn  that  we  must  stand  to- 
gether, first  of  all  for  the  world  as  a  whole,  and 
then  inside  of  that,  for  Australia  as  a  whole — not 
for  this  class  or  for  that  class,  not  for  this  State  or 
for  that  State,  but  for  this  great  continent  of  yours. 
Here  you  have  a  continent  which  could  support 
without  the  slightest  difficulty  fifty  million,  perhaps 
a  hundred  million  people,  and  in  it  you  have  a  beg- 
garly five  million  inhabitants,  less  than  the  popu- 
lation of  London.  That  is  not  the  way  to  pros- 
perity and  to  final  victory.  Remember  we  have  still 
to  pay  for  the  war,  not  only  in  money  but  in  many 
other  ways  as  well.  The  military  victory  is  prac- 
tically won;  we  are  justified  in  singing  that  peace 
is  drawing  near,  and  in  giving  hearty  thanks  that 
it  is  so. 

But  there  lies  yet  before  us  a  long  time  of  self- 
sacrifice.  For  a  long  time  we  have  been  told  how 
necessary  economy  was  in  order  that  the  war  should 
be  won.  Of  course  it  was;  and  personal  economy  is 
still  necessary  in  order  that  the  fruits  of  the  war 
may  fbe  garnered,  in  order  that  we  may  help  on  this 
glorious  current  of  evolution  which  is  springing  up 
amongst  us  in  the  form  of  the  Sixth  Sub-race.  We 
must  still  live  not  for  ourselves,  but  for  all.  We  must 


498  &he  Christian  Festivals 

put  aside  our  private  differences  and  work  for  the 
common  good.  A  whole  generation  of  such  work  is 
required  if  the  best  results  are  to  be  obtained. 

We  speak  much  and  often  of  brotherhood;  here  is 
an  opportunity  to  live  it.  Therefore  let  us  take  to 
ourselves  that  lesson.  We  give  thanks  that  the 
demon  is  defeated,  we  give  thanks  that  the  war  is 
won;  let  us  see  to  it  that  the  blood  that  has  been 
shed  has  not  been  shed  in  vain — that  we  gain  from 
our  victory  all  that  can  be  gained ;  and  in  order  that 
that  shall  be  so,  let  every  individual  man,  woman 
and  child  try  to  live  not  for  self,  but  for  the  good 
of  all.  Each  may  easily  feel:  "I  am  an  insignifi- 
cant person;  what  can  I  do  to  help  the  Common- 
wealth ?"  Every  little  economy  that  can  be  made, 
every  little  help  that  can  be  given,  is  something  done 
towards  the  great  cause.  Every  penny  that  is 
saved  from  extravagance  in  dress,  and  invested  in  a 
war  savings  stamp  or  bond,  is  a  penny  given  to  the 
Cause.  Think  what  an  enormous  saving  might  be 
made  every  year  if  people  would  give  up  absolutely 
unnecessary  and  selfish  indulgences.  Take  three 
things  only — drink,  smoking  and  horseracing;  all 
three  selfish,  all  three  unnecessary,  all  three  posi- 
tively harmful;  if  these  three  evils  were  extermin- 
ated, think  how  soon  we  could  pay  off  all  debts, 
and  what  a  huge  fortune  could  be  devoted  to  the 
development  of  the  country.  Think  what  might  be 
saved  if  people  would  ignore  the  kaleidoscopic 
changes  dictated  by  the  silly  vagaries  of  fashion, 
and  dress  only  for  comfort  and  beauty!  Why  can- 
not these  reforms  be  carried  out?  Only  because  the 
vast  majority  of  people  are  stall  unevolved,  still 


The  Future  499 

brutally  selfish.  They  have  quietly  made  up  their 
minds  that  they  will  have  their  drink  or  their 
tobacco,  their  racing  or  their  extravagant  dress,  no 
matter  what  happens  to  their  'brothers  or  to  their 
country. 

At  least  we  need  not  follow  the  herd;  we  have 
learnt  a  little  more  than  they;  let  us  put  into  prac- 
tice the  knowledge  that  has  been  given  to  us.  Each 
of  us  can  do  some  little  thing.  Remember  the 
story  in  the  gospel  of  the  widow's  mite.  Little 
could  she  give  as  compared  to  the  rich  Pharisees, 
and  yet  the  Christ  said  that  she  had  given  in  greater 
proportion  than  they  all,  because  she  had  done  all 
that  she  could.  Let  that  be  said  of  every  one  of 
us;  that  every  one  of  us  is  doing  what  he  or  she  can 
in  the  cause  of  righteousness,  in  the  helping  for- 
ward of  the  great  stream  of  evolution.  So  shall  we 
be  fellow-workers  together  with  God  Himself:  so, 
in  thanking  Him,  shall  we  show  Him  that  that  for 
which  we  thank  Him  has  not  been  wasted  upon  us. 


INDEX 


ABRAHAM;    A   STORY   OF,    79. 

Accidents    and    Substance,    218. 

Act   of   Faith,    436. 

Adam,    246. 

Advantage  of  Clairvoyance,  362, 
367. 

Advent,    16;   dual   nature  of,   18. 

Aether    of    Space,    244. 

Age;    a    new,    76. 

Alcohol,    389. 

All    can    help,    478,    491. 

All    Saints'    Day,    324. 

All    Souls'    Day,    330. 

America,    45. 

Angel;  of  a  grove,  279,  280;  of 
the  earth;  271;  of  the  Presence, 
57,  226,  268;  of  the  valley, 
274-7;  the  directing,  265. 

Angels;  57,  63,  236,  252;  of 
countries,  288;  of  music,  271; 
aura  of,  266;  description  of, 
265;  ensouling,  270,  272; 
guardian,  269,  317;  help  from, 
237;  in  church,  262;  orders  of, 
258;  the  higher,  252;  the  low- 
er, 270;  the  planetary,  271; 
the  work  of,  257,  259,  261; 
tiny,  266,  267;  wings  of,  265. 

Annunciation;    the,    126,    250. 

Aphrodite,    244. 

Apollonius  of  Tyana,  29. 

Apostles,    291. 

Apparitions  at  the  war,   318. 

Appearances   of   Our   Lady,    241. 

Arhat;  sufferings  of  the,  163,  170, 
172. 

As  above,   so  below,   245. 

Ascension;    the,    13,    246,    249. 

Ascension   Day,    190. 

Asceticism,    131,    174. 

Asekha,    170,    202. 

Ash   Wednesday,    129. 

Ashtoreth,    179. 

Aspect;    the    feminine,    246,    248. 

Assumption;    the,    245,    246,    250. 

Astral  body;  the,  70,  73,  371,  391; 
colours  in,  120;  investigation 
of,  331. 

At  the  Feet  of  the  Master,  22,  388. 

Athanasian  Creed;  the,  194,  210. 
205. 

Atlantis,   25,   458. 

Attainment ;  methods  of,  50 ;  of 
perfection,  415. 


j   Atrocities,    481. 

I  Attitude;  towards  God,  our,  437; 
towards  life,  355;  towards 
others,  70 ;  towards  the  bible, 
352;  towards  the  war,  452,  475. 

;  Augoeides;    the,    119. 
Australasia,    45. 

I  Ave  Maria,  251. 

BACCHUS;   THE  INFANT,  430. 
Bacon;   Francis,   308;  Roger,   307. 
Baconian   cypher,    308. 
Baptism;    of    Christ,    118;    of    our 

Lord,    12,    14,    101;    the    Sacra- 
ment of,   269. 
Baron    Hompesch,    310. 
Battle;    the  plan   of   the,   435. 
Belief;    freedom      of,      347,      431; 

scientific,    358;    what    it    means, 

421. 

Believe   and   be   saved,   419. 
Besant;    Mrs.   Annie,    325. 
Best   in   everything;    the,    437. 
Better   plan;    a,    77. 
Be   ye   perfect,    103. 
Bible;    the,    23;   authorised  version 

of,    309;    our    attitude    towards, 

352,  396. 
Bigness,  51. 
Birth;  legends  of  the,  30;  of 

Jesus,   235;   of  Christ,   12,   16. 
Bishop;   title  of  a,  37. 
Bismarck,    Prince ;    interview   with, 

466,    467. 

Blavatsky;    Madame,    quoted,    163. 
Blessed  Virgin;  feasts  of  the,  229. 
Bodies  of  man;  the,   301. 
Body;  the  astral,  70,  73,  371,  391; 

the    causal,     119;    the    physical, 

390. 

Brahman;   the,   407. 
British  Empire;   the,   465. 
Brotherhood,  362;  the  Great  White, 

12,    329,    446. 
Brotherliness ;  true,  74. 
Buddha;   the  Lord,   20,   73,   91. 
Buddhism,    20. 

CALENDAR;    OF      CHURCH,      14, 

two  parts   of  the,   11. 
Calmness   necessary,    361. 
Candlemas   Day,    128. 
Candle;    the   Paschal,    177. 
Capital   and   labour,    496. 


500 


Index 


501 


Carelessness;    danger   of,    112. 

Causal  body;   the,    119. 

Cause  and  effect,  419,  439. 

Certainty ;  of  knowledge,  49 ;  of 
success,  71 ;  of  victory,  187. 

Changed  world;  a,   52. 

Change  of  religion  unnecessary. 
296. 

Christ ;  a  great  Official,  41 ;  and  the 
rich  man,  402,  446;  birth  of  the, 
12,  16 ;  child,  the,  63 ;  conies 
when  needed,  42 ;  date  of  the, 
29;  idea,  88;  members  of,  55; 
not  crucified,  145;  our  best 
friend,  439;  our  example,  175; 
our  Saviour,  350;  power  of  the, 
54;  principle,  the,  49;  sayings 
of  the,  441;  teaching  of  the,  19; 
the  Baptism  of,  118;  the  hope 
of  glory,  89;  the  living,  24,  350, 
4-05,  439;  two  natures  of,  200; 
what  He  will  teach,  19;  why  He 
will  come  soon,  45. 

Christ-like   life;    the,    51. 

Christian ;  and  heathen,  409 ;  mis- 
sionaries, 443;  mysteries,  126; 
sects,  84. 

Christianity;  a  brotherhood,  425; 
an 'Oriental  religion,  233,  442; 
failure  of,  43 ;  mediaeval,  42 ; 
somatic,  33. 

Christians;  persecution  of,  311. 

Christmas,  16,  27;  an  opportunity, 
61;  seven  meaningis  of,  28; 
spirit,  the,  64. 

Christ's  disciples,  443. 

Ohrists;    pagan,    34. 

Church;  and  politics,  396;  and 
science,  395;  Angels  in,  262; 
calendar  of,  14. 

Church's;  message  consistent,  433; 
year,  11. 

Civilization;    beginnings  of,   85. 

Civilizations;    older,    379. 

Clairvoyance,  133,  210,  220;  ad- 
vantage of,  362,  367. 

Class   consciousness,    77. 

Clear  issue;   a,  485,  493. 

Clergy;   duty  of  the,   347. 

Collect;    tho    Lenten,    140. 

Colours;    ecclesiastical,    17;    in   the  j 
astral  body,   120. 

Coming;  preparation  for  His,  24, 
40;  signs  of  the,  98;  the  -Second, 
18.  25,  39,  95. 

Commandments;   the,   404. 

Communion,  224;  of  the  Saints, 
327,  329. 

Community;  the  good  of  the,  495. 


Comte  de  St.  Germain,   310. 

Conception;  Immaculate,  182,  235. 

Confession   of   Faith;    our,    360. 

Conscience,    139. 

Consciousness;  class,  77;  the  high- 
er, 377. 

Consecration;  of  Elements,  160; 
what  happens  at,  221. 

Consolatrix  Afflictorum,  251. 

Construction    of    English,    309. 

Contact  with  God,  301. 

Control;  lack  of,  390;  of  vehicles, 
174. 

Conversion,   250. 

Co  operation,  495,  496. 

Corpus   Christi,   215. 

Cosmogony,    123. 

Counters;    intellectual,    146. 

Countries;    angels    of,    288. 

Creed;  interpretation  of  the,  39; 
the  Athanasian,  194,  205,  210; 
to  explain  the,  352. 

Crime;   statistics  of,   461. 

Cringing    and    horror,    437. 

Criticism,    137. 

Cross;  take  up  your,  173,  418;  the 
Pectoral,  276. 

Crucifixion;  no,   146,   155;  the,   13, 

Cypher;    Baconian,    308. 

DAIVIPRAKRITI,    206. 

Damnation;   no,  31. 

Danger  of   carelessness,    112. 

Dork  Face;   Lords  of  the,   456. 

Date   of   the   Christ,   29. 

Dead,  the;  antiphon  for,  342,  con- 
ditions of,  336;  help  from,  237; 
how  we  can  help,  337,  342,  343, 
491;  praying  for,  330,  339; 
state  of,  331;  unchanged,  335; 
very  near  us,  335;  we  must  not 
mourn,  337. 

Death;  misconceptions  about,  333; 
the  life  after,  432. 

Deep;  the  Great,  243. 

Definition  of  worship,   229. 

Degenerate  Germany,  463. 

Deity;   the  Solar,   30,   180,  213. 

Democracy,   468,    469. 

Depression  a  crime,   339,   368. 

Descent   into  matter;    the,    30. 

Desert;    forty   days   in   the,    112. 

Devas,    254. 

Development;  lines  of,  153;  path 
of,  103. 

Devotion;  never  wasted,  238,  239; 
the  spire  of,  60. 

Dickons;    Charles,   64. 


502 


The  Christian  Festivals 


Difficulties    never      insurmountable, 

368. 

Diocletian,    306,    311. 
Directing  Angel;  the,  265. 
Direct    testimony,    48. 
Discernment,    384. 
Disciple;   Jesus   the,    28. 
Disciples;    instruction    to,    357;    of 

the   Christ,    443. 
Discrimination,    388,    392,    394. 
Dispensation;    the    gospel,    19. 
Divine  Spark;   the,   184,  406. 
Doctrine;   of  the  Trinity,   205;   our 

fundamental,    348,    366,    436. 
Douleia.  230,  231. 

Dragon;   St.  George  and  the,  315. 
Drama;    Mystery,    11. 
Drill,  416. 

Dual  nature  of  Advent,  18. 
Duty ;    done   in  His   Name,    403 ;   of 

the  clergy,  347. 

EACH;  DOES  HIS  BEST  WORK, 
57;  has  influence,  107;  man  a 
spirit,  184;  must  do  something, 
99,  116. 

Earth- Angel;  the,  271. 

Easter,  16,  27,  179;  new  fire  at, 
175;  the  joy  of,  185. 

Easter  greeting;  the,  189. 

Ecclesiastical    colours,    17. 

Economy;   necessity  for,  497. 

Edifice;    the    Eucharistic,    59. 

Eightfold    Path;    the    Noble,    73. 

Elements;  new,  201;  of  consecra- 
tion, 160. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  308. 

Elves,    267. 

Emperor;   libation  for  the,   312. 

Empire;   the  British,   465. 

End  of  the  world,   44. 

English;  race,  the,  85;  the  con- 
struction of,  309. 

Ensouling    Angels,    270,    272. 

Enthusiasm;    misguided,    314. 

Entities ;  non-human,   273. 

Epiphany;  the,  81. 

Eternal  truths,   43. 

Eucharistic  edifice;   the,   59. 

Eucharist;  institution  of,  160;  of 
the  Presanctified.  168,  177;  the 
Holy,  56,  216;  the  plan  of,  225. 

Every  encounter  an  opportunity, 
417. 

Evidence;  cumulative,  363;  first- 
hand, 332;  of  St.  John,  4§0; 
worth  considering,  436. 

Evil;  always  temporary,  120;  the 
existence  of,  361. 


Evils;     public,     487;     three    great, 

498. 
Evolution;    Celtic    theory    of,    284; 

object  of,   69. 

:  Examinations;  God's,  484. 
Example;  Christ  our,  175. 
Expectation ;  universal,  46. 

FACTS    ABOUT    THE    WAR,    453. 
Failure;       impossible,       142;       of 

Christianity,    43. 
Fairy     taith     in     Celtic     Countriet 

282. 
Faith,    144,    146;      Act      of,      436; 

founded   on      observation,      355; 

intelligent,   109;   of  our  Fathers, 

the,    347;     our      confession      of. 

360. 

Fasting,    130,   132,   135. 
Father-Mother;    the,    247. 
Fear  of  God;  the,  150,   400. 
Feasts   of   Our   Lady,    229. 
Feminine    Aspect;     the,     246,     248. 

250. 

Festival;   the   Wesak,    63. 
Festivals  of  the   Saints,  290. 
Fifth    sub-race;    the,    464. 
First-hand   evidence,    332. 
Force    never   wasted,    57. 
Forces;    of   good   and      evil,      456; 

spiritual,   223. 
Foreign  missions,    296. 
Forethought,  441. 
Foreword,   7. 

Forgiveness   of   sin,    149,    439. 
Formula;    St.   Paul's,    90. 
Forty  days;   the  great,   179. 
Four    qualifications;    the,    17,    22. 
Four  stages;  the,   12. 
Fragments  of  God,  300. 
Francis    Bacon,    308. 
Freedom;  from  irritability,  381;  of 

belief,    347,    431. 
Freemasonry,    128,   305,  310. 
Freethinker;    the,    386. 
Free-will,    367. 
Friday,  Good,   160,  168. 
Fundamental   doctrine;     our,      348, 

366,   436. 
Future;  a   grander,   490, 

GAUTAMA;   THE   LORD,    20. 

Gentiles;   manifestation  to  the,   84. 

Gentlemanliness,    114. 

Gethsemane,    160. 

Glory;   the  hope  of,   89. 

God;  as  Light,  426;  contact  with, 
301;  fragments  of,  300;  is  Light, 
348,  400,  433;  is  Love,  19,  22; 


Index 


503 


limited  views  of,  212;  many 
paths  to,  295,  386;  our  attitude 
towards,  437;  the  fear  of,  150; 
the  grace  of,  61,  150;  the  Im- 
manence of,  36 ;  the  Mother  As- 
pect of,  244;  the  Names  of,  89; 
the  nearness  of,  237,  299;  the- 
ories about,  363 ;  union  with, 
302. 

God's;  almoners,  381;  examina- 
tions, 484;  plan,  11,  30. 

Good  and  evil ;  forces  of,  456 ; 
struggle  of,  487. 

Good  Friday,  160,  168. 

Good  in  everything,  394. 

Goodness  not  sufficient,  298. 

Good;  resolution,  68,  72;  works, 
419. 

Gospel;  dispensation,  the,  19;  in- 
ner meaning  of,  38;  of  love,  372; 
of  wisdom,  375;  myth,  32. 

Gospels;  allegorical,  34;  meaning 
of  the,  12. 

Gossip;  evil  of,  139. 

Grace  of  God;  the,  61,  150. 

Grail;  the  Holy,  83,  245. 

Grander  future;  a,  493. 

Great;  Deep,  the,  243;  Ones,  47; 
War,  the,  24,  53,  115;  White 
Brotherhood,  the,  12. 

Greatest   of   these;    the,    370. 

Greeting;   the  Easter,    189. 

Grove;  Angel  of  a,  279,  280. 

Guardian   Angels,   269,    317. 

HABITS;    HOW     TO      CONQUER, 

71;  bad,  173;  old,  374. 
Hanfcatha,  279. 
Harmful  thoughts,    393. 
Harmlessness,    114. 
Heathen  and  Christian,   409. 
Heaven;   the   kingdom   of,   12,    446; 

what  it  is,  422. 
Heights  of  heroism,   53. 
Hell,   145 ;  a  false  alarm,  349. 
Help;    by   thought,    237;      for     the 

dead,  313;  from  the  Angels,  237; 

from  the  dead,  237. 
Hermits,  105. 
Heroism  in  the  war,  413. 
Hierarchy;  the  Great,  124. 
Higher  consciousness;  the,  377. 
Highest   service;    the,    106. 
Hinduism,  20,   36. 
Historic  existence  of  Jesus,  32. 
Historical  interpretation,   14. 
Holy  Eucharist;   the,   56,  216,  262;  j 

object  of,  624. 
Holy  Ghost;   the,   118,     194,     197. 

207,  208;  procession  of  the,  200.  • 


Holy  Grail;   the,  83,   127,  245. 

Holy  Saturday,   175. 

Holy   week,    154;    events    of,      157, 

services  in,   164. 
Hornpesch,  Baron,  310. 
Hope  of  Glory;  the,  89. 
Horrors  of  the  war,  156. 
How   we    know,    351. 
Hunyadi,  John,  307. 
Hurry;  the  good  and  evil  of,  379. 
Hymns;      undesirable,      134,      328; 

wicked,   18,   19. 
Hyper  douleia,  230,  231, 

IDOLATRY,  231. 

Idolaters;  alleged,  426. 

Illusion  of  separateness,  54. 

Immaculate    Conception;    the,    182, 

235. 

j  Immanence  of  God;  the,  36. 
|  Incarnation;  a  past,  459. 
I   Incense,  268. 

!  India;  an  experience  in,  279. 
I   Influence;  each  has,  107. 
1  Initiator;    the    One,    124. 

Initiation;  the  first,  31;  the  second, 
31;    the   third,    123;    the   fourth. 
155,    162,    164;    the     fifth,      170, 
191;   the  mount  of,    119. 
i  Initiations,  12,  108,  109,  111. 
!  Inner  meaning  of  gospel,  38. 
j   Institution    of    Eucharist,     160. 
|  Instruction    to    disciples,    357. 
j  Intellect;    the,    75. 

Intellectual   counters,   146. 

Intelligent    faith,    109. 

Intercession   of   the    Saints,    293. 

Interpretation;     historical,     14;     of 
the  Creed,   39. 

Introduction,    11. 

;  Investigation;   of  astral  plane,   31; 
of    religious    matters,    431. 

Invisible  Helpers,  110,  258. 

Irritability;    freedom   from,    381. 

Isis,    244,    247,    249. 
|   Isaue;   a   clear,   485,   493. 
;   Ivan    Rakoczy,    310. 

'   JEHOVAH,     135,     180,     232,     365, 

404. 
Jesus;    the   birth   of,    235;    historic 

existence    of,     32 ;     the    disciple, 

28. 

lesus  or  Paul  ?    87. 
Jewish;    prophets,    91;     scriptures, 

353. 

Jews;    the,    85. 
Joan   of  Arc,   241,   318. 
John    Hunyadi,     307. 
John  the  Baptist,   40.    113. 


504 


The  Christian  Festivals 


Joseph,    St.,   235. 

Joy;    of  Easter,    185;   of  the  Lord, 

429;    the   test   of  faith,    429. 
Judaism;    mistakes    of,    86. 
Judas   Iscariot,   159,   457. 
Judgment;    the   day   of,    410. 
Justice;   the  law  of,   349. 

KARMA,    132,    171,    385,   439. 
King    of    England;    the,    469. 
King;    the   Spiritual,    124. 
Kings;    the    three,    82,    96. 
Kingdom  of  Heaven;   the,    12,   446. 
Kingdoms    of    Nature,   253. 
Knowledge;    the   certainty   of,    49. 
Koilon,    244. 
Koine;  the,  90,  442. 
Krishna;    Shri,    21,    182. 
Kwan-yin,    251. 

LACK   OF   CONTROL,    390. 

Latent    qualities,    239. 

Latreia,  230,  231. 

Lazarus;    the   raising   of,    157. 

Legends  of  the  birth,   30. 

Lent,  129;  object  of,  143;  our 
attitude  towards,  129. 

Lenten  collect;    the,    140. 

Libation  for  the  Emperor,   312 

Life;  after  death,  432;  the  Christ- 
like,  51;  the  spiritual,  105,  107; 
our  attitude  towards,  355;  of 
love,  the,  376;  monotony  of, 
414;  the  wheel  of,  54. 

Lifters  and  the  lifted;   the,   448. 

Light;  God  is,  348,  400,  426, 
433. 

Lights;   the  lower,   428. 

Likeness   between   Religions,   38. 

Limited  views  of   God,   212. 

Lines   of   development,    153. 

Litany;  the,    160. 

Living  Christ;   the,   24,   350,   405. 

Logos;  the,  179,  196,  202,  213; 
the  Solar,  191. 

Lord;  baptism  of  our,  12,  14,  101; 
the  fear  of  the,  400. 

Lord  Buddha;  the,  73,  91;  a  say- 
ing of  the,  440. 

Lords  of  the  Dark  Face,   456. 

Lore  of  Proserpine,  284. 

Look  for  pearls,   75. 

Lourdes,    242. 

Love;  St.  Paul  on,  373;  the  gos- 
pel of,  372;  the  life  of,  376; 
what  it  is,  370;  idealizes,  423. 

Lower  Angels;   the,   270. 

Lower  nature;  our,  487;  to  be  sub- 
dued, 173. 


Lower  lights ;   the,   428. 
Lusitania;    the,    471. 

MACROCOSM  AND  MICROCOSM, 

125. 

Mahdi;  the,  46. 
Magi;    the,    82. 
Maitreya;    the   Lord,    21,    46. 
Manifestation;    a    triplicity,      209; 

to  the  Gentiles,  84. 
Man  is  divine,   349;  immortal,  349. 
Man;    the    bodies   of,    301;      three- 
fold division  of,  301. 
Manu;    the,    317. 
Man  Visible  and  Invisible,  371. 
Man,  Whence,  How  and  Whither,  261. 
Many  paths  to  God,  386. 
Martyrs;    the,    413. 
Mary    Magdalene,    245. 
Masters  of  the  Wisdom,  350,  374. 
Matter  and  Spirit,  242. 
Matter;   descent  into,  30;   qualities 

of,    211;    subtler  forms   of,   218; 

the    Virgin,     242 ;     varieties    of, 

255. 

Maundy   Thursday,    160,    161,    167. 
Meaning   of   salvation,    420;    of   the 

Gospels,   12. 

Mediaeval    Christianity,    42. 
Meditation ;    the   higher,    480. 
Melody;    the    traditional,    264. 
Members  of  Christ,  55. 
Memory ;    right,    73. 
Mercy;  demand  for,  438. 
Message  of  Church  consistent,  433. 
Methods   of   attainment,    50. 
Middle  Ages;   the,   42. 
Misconceptions   about   death,    333. 
Misguided  enthusiasm,    314. 
Missionaries;    Christian,    443. 
Missions ;    foreign,   296. 
Mistakes    of   Judaism,    86. 
Mite;   the  widow's,    499. 
Monks;    the,    105. 
Monotony  of  life,  414. 
Moral   stocktaking,    68. 
Morbidity  evil,   135. 
Mother-Aspect   of   God,    244. 
Mother   of  Jesus;    the,    235. 
Motives,   51;     never     impute,      74, 

138,   393. 

Mount   of  Initiation,    119. 
Mountain;  paths  up  the,   92. 
Muhammadanism,    20. 
Mulaprakriti,    196,   206,    242,   250. 
Music   Angels;   the,   271. 
Mystery- Drama ;   the,   11,   146,  227, 

353. 

Mysteries;   the  Christian,   126. 
Myth  of  the  Gospel,  32. 


Index 


505 


NAME  MEANS  POWER,   300. 
Names;  of  God,  the,  89;  unimport 

ant,   240. 

Nation;  obsession  of  a,  470. 
Nations;    small,   455. 
Nativity  of  Our  Lady,  249,   250. 
Nature;    kingdoms   of,      253;      our  j 

lower,    487;    secrets   in,    399. 
Nature-Spirits,    267,    273. 
Nearness  of   God;   the,   299. 
Need   of  understanding,    78. 
Nervous  strain,   378,  380. 
New  Age;    a,    76. 
New  fire  at  Easter;  the,   175. 
New  Subrace;  the,  45. 
New  Year's  day,    66. 
Nirvana,    302. 
Nivritti  Marga,  11,  201. 
Noah,   25. 

Noble  Eightfold  Path;   the,   73. 
No  damnation,  31,  349. 
None  can  be  lost,  420. 
Non-human  entities,  273. 
Not  men  but  fiends,  474. 
Nunc  Dimittis,  123. 

OBJECTIONABLE  HYMNS,  134. 
Object  of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  264.  j 
Obligation;    Holy  Days  of,   190. 
Obsession;    a   mighty,   461;      of      a  ! 

nation,   470. 
Occult  Chemistry,  244. 
Octaves,   66. 

Official;  Christ  a  great,  41. 
Older  civilisations,   379. 
Old   habits,    374. 
One  becomes  many,  424. 
On  God's  side,   384,  387,  447,  485, 

487. 
Opportunity:   an     unequalled,     76;  ! 

every    encounter    an,    417 ;    war  j 

an,    478,    482,   488. 
Order  of  the  Star  in  the  East,  24, 

46,    48,    95. 
Oriental  religions,  407,  409;  teach-  ! 

ers,  442. 

Origen   quoted,    33. 
Orpheus,  91. 
Osiris,    182. 

Others   cannot  harm  us,   72. 
Out    attitude;    towards    God,    437;  \ 

towards       life,       355;       towards 

others,   70. 
Our     fundamental     doctrine,      348, 

366,    436. 
Our    Lady,    196,    206;      feasts      of, 

229;  purification  of,  122,  visions  j 

of,    241. 
Ours   not   the   only    way,    93. 


Outpouring;    special,     16,    55;    the 

first,   126;   the  second,    127. 
Outpourings ;  the,  250. 

PAGAN   CHRISTS,   34. 

Palm  Sunday,  13,  157;  services  on, 

165. 

Paraclete;  the,   202. 
Parables;    the,    33. 
Paschal  candle;   the,   177. 
Paschal  full  moon;   the,    15. 
Passion    Sunday,    154. 
Path  of  development;   the,   103. 
Paths  to  God;  many,   295,  386. 
Paths  up  the  mountain,   92. 
Patron  Saints,  299,   316. 
Paul    or   Jesus?    87. 
Peace;    after   the,    494;    the   Prince 

of,    476. 

Pectoral  cross;  the,  276. 
Perfection;   how  to  attain,   415. 
Persona;  meaning  of,  213. 
Perseus   and  Andromeda,    315. 
Personal    testimony,    431,    436. 
Persecution  of   Christians,   311. 
Perseverance,   413. 
Physical   body;    the,    390. 
Plan;   a  better,    77;   a  part  of  the, 

464;  of  God,  the,   11,  30;  of /the 

Eucharist,   225. 
Planetary  Angels;   the,   271. 
Pleiades;    the,    309. 
Politics   and   the   Church,    396. 
Polytheism  ,247. 
Poseidonis,  459. 
Power  of  the  Christ;   the,   54. 
Power  of  Thought,  340. 
Power  of  the  Spiritual  Body,  351. 
Prana,  201. 

Prayer;  what  it  implies,  480. 
Praying  for  the  dead,  330,  339. 
Preparation ;    for    His   Coming,    24, 

40;  times  of,  16,  17,  61. 
Presanctified;    Eucharist      of      the 

168,   177. 
Presence;    Angel   of   the,   268,   226, 

57;   Real,   217,   222. 
Presentation    in    the    Temple,    122, 

125. 

Prince  of  Peace;   the,  476. 
Principle;  the  war  of,  455. 
Prisoner  in  Fairyland;  A,  286. 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  200. 
Proclus,   307. 
Progress,  is  it  real  ?  68. 
Progress   through   the     War,      477, 

490. 

Progress;  unending,  353. 
Prophets;   the  Jewish,  91. 


506 


Christian  Festivals 


Propitiatory   religions,    364. 

Proselytizing  presumptuous,   93. 

Pride,    392. 

Principle;   the  Christ,   49. 

Prussianism,   470. 

Public  evils,   487. 

Purification   of   Our  Lady,    122. 

QUALIFICATIONS;   THE     FOUR, 

22. 
Qualities;    latent,    239;    of    matter,  j 

17,  211. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  308. 

RAISING  OF  LAZARUS;  the,  157. 

Rakoczy,    Ivan,    310. 

Ramanujacharya,   29. 

Rational  view  of  Religion,   35. 

Ray;  the  sixth,  310;  the  seventh, 
310. 

Real  Presence;  the,  217,  222. 

Reality  of  Progress,  68. 

Re-birth;  Celtic  theory  of,  283. 

Refreshment  Sunday,   151. 

Reincarnation,   103,   104,  294. 

Religion;  a  rational  view  of,  35;  a  j 
matter  of  birth,   240 ;   the  Egyp-  i 
tian,  36;  the  Greek,  37;  the  Hin- 
du,   20,    36;    the    Muhammadan, 
20;   the  Roman,   37;   the  Zoroas-  | 
trian,    37;    Scientific,    151;    must  I 
be  practical,   146. 

Religions ;  all  alike,  41 ;  are  lenses, 
108;  eastern,  407,  409;  identi- 
cal, 92,  116 ;  likenesses  between, 
38;  propitiatory,  364. 

Religious  matters;  investigation  of, 
431. 

Religious  men,   384. 

Repentance,   131;   a  sensible,  68. 

Resolutions:  good,  68,  72. 

Responsibility;    a   serious,    76. 

Resurrection;   the,   13. 

Right   and   Wrong,   388. 

Right  memory,    73. 

Roger  Bacon,  307. 

Roman   race;    the,    86. 

Rose  colour,    17. 

Rose-coloured  vestments,   152. 

Rosenkreutz,    Christian,    307. 

Rosicrucians,    307. 

Ruysbroek  quoted,    163. 

SACRAMENTS    AS    HELPS,      347, 

387,    401,   419. 
Sacrifice,  406. 
Saint   Alban,    305. 
Saint  Clement  of  Alexandria,  289. 
Saint  George,  311;  and  the  Dragon, 

315. 


Saint  John,   22 ;  evidence,  430. 

Saint  Mark,    323. 

Saint   Patrick,    319. 

Saint  Paul;  on  love,  373;  formula 
of,  90. 

Saint  Peter,  291. 

Saint;  definition  of  a,  292. 

Saints;  the,  32;  brief  notes  on, 
305;  communion  of,  327,  329; 
Festival  of,  290 ;  helps  given  by, 
324;  intercession  of,  293;  not  in 
heaven,  294;  our  attitude  to- 
wards, 290;  Patron,  299,  316; 
re-born  on  earth,  326. 

Salvation,  147;  meaning  of,  420. 

^alvator  Mundi,  146. 

Saturday;    Holy,    175. 

Savages;  what  they  are,  349. 

Saviour;  how  Christ  is  our,  350; 
the,  31;  of  the  world,  142. 

Sayings  of  the  Christ.   441. 

Science  and  the  Church,   395. 

Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  282. 

•Science  of  the  Sacraments,  2G2. 

Scientific;  religion,  151;  belief, 
358. 

Scriptures;  the  Jewish.  353. 

Second  Coming;  the,  18,  25,  39,  95. 

Secret  Doctrine;   I  he,  163,  456. 

Secrets   in   Nature,   399. 

Sects;   Christian,    84. 

Self;  conceit,  38;  dedication,  402; 
examination,  135.  144;  sacrifice, 
necessity  for,  497;  mortification, 
133. 

Selfishness,  394. 

Senses;  the  trained,  256. 

Separateness ;   an  illusion,   54. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount;  the.  356, 
441,  445. 

Service;  the  highest,  106. 

Seven  meanings  of  Christmas,  28. 

Seventh  Ray;  the,   310. 

Sixth  Ray;   the,   310. 

Shamrock;    a   symbol,   322. 

Signs  of  the  Coming,   98. 

Sin;  the  forgiveness  of,  148,  438, 
199. 

Slander,   73. 

:3uiall   nations,    455. 

Social  unrest,  115. 

Solar  Deity;   the,   30,   180,   213. 

Solar  Logos;  the,  191;  Trinity,  the, 
243. 

Soul  of  Germany;   the,   462. 

Somatic   Christianity,    33. 

Spark  of  the  Divine,  184.  406. 

Special  outpouring,   16,   55. 

Spire   of   devotion,    60. 


Index 


507 


Spirit;  and  Matter,  242;  of  Wis- 
dom, 113;  the  Christmas,  64. 

Spiritual;  forces,  223;  life,  105, 
107. 

Stages;   the  four,   12. 

Star  in  the  East;  Order  of,  24,  46, 
48,  95. 

Star;  the  glory  of  the,  99;  the  les- 
son of  the,  96. 

Statistics  of  crime,  461. 

St.   Germain,   Comte   de,   310. 

Stocktaking;  moral,   68. 

Story  of  Abraham;   a,   79. 

Struggle  of  good  and  evil,  487. 

Sub-race ;  the  fifth,  464 ;  the  new, 
45. 

Substance  and  accidents,    218. 

Subtler  forms  of  matter,  218. 

Success;    the   certainty   of,   71. 

Sufferings  of  the  Arhat,   170,  172. 

Sun  as   a   symbol;   the,   426,   428. 

Sun-God;    the,    181,    182,   27. 

Sun  worship,    426. 

Sunday,  67. 

Superstitions,    145. 

TAKE  UP  YOUR  CROSS,  418,    483. 

Tapestry;    the   design   on   the,    434. 

Teachers;    Oriental,    442. 

Teaching   of   the   Christ,    19. 

Temper;    a   bad,    TO. 

Temple;    Presentation   in   the,    122. 

Tenebrae,    164,    167. 

Testimony;  direct,  48;  personal, 
431,  436. 

Theories  about  God,   363. 

Thebsophical  Society;  German  plot 
in  the,  454. 

Things    that    matter,    20. 

Thoth,   91. 

Thought  Angels,    268. 

Thought;  help  by,  237;  power  of, 
340;  the  force  of,  140. 

Thoughts;  harmful,  393;  wander- 
ing, 392. 

Three-fold  division  of  Man,   301. 

Three   great  evils,   498. 

Thursday;  Maundy.  160,  161, 
167. 

Times    of   preparation,    16,    17,    61. 

Title  of  a  Bishop,   37. 

Traditional    melody,    264. 

Trained   Senses ;    the,    256. 

Traitors,    483. 

Transfiguration;  the,  13,  14,  15. 
118,  121. 

Transubstantiation,   217,   219. 

Tree   Spirits;    the,   278. 

Trinity;  the,  195,  206,  213;  doc- 
trine of,  205;  the  Solar,  243. 


Trinity  Sunday,  204. 

Troubles      necessarily      evanescent, 

368. 

Truth  about  the  War;  the,  451. 
Truths;   eternal,   43. 
Tuatha-de-Danaan,    283. 
Two  natures  of  Christ,   200. 
Two  parts   of  the  calendar,    11. 

UNCOVENANTED  MERCIES,  409. 

Understanding;    need   of,    78. 

Unending   progress,    353. 

Union  with  God,   302. 

Unity;  the  reason  of,  424;  work- 
ing towards,  457;  working 
against,  458. 

Universal    expectation,    46. 

Unpractical   Religion,    146. 

Unrest;   social,   115. 

Unselfish    effort,    416. 

Unselfishness,   52,   76. 

Use   the   given   channel,    102. 

Ushas;    the,    179. 

VALLEY:  ANGEL  OP  THE  274- 
7. 

Varieties   of  matter,    255. 

Vehicles;    control   of,    174. 

Vestments;    rose   coloured,    152. 

Vibrations;  the  higher,  224. 

Victory  is   certain,    187. 

Virgin;  birth,  the,  182;  the  bless- 
ed, 196,  206;  matter,  242. 

Visions  of  Our  Lady,   241. 

Vitality,   201. 

Vyasa,    91. 

WANDERING    THOUGHTS,    392. 

War;  anniversary  of,  480;  an  op- 
portunity, 478,  482,  488;  ap- 
paritions at  the,  318;  a  true 
crusade,  473 ;  facts  about  the, 
453 ;  heroism  in  the,  413 ;  our 
attitude  towards  the,  452,  475 ; 
preparation  for  the,  452 ;  rapid 
progress  by,  477,  490;  the 
great,  24.  53,  75,  115,  434;  the 
horrors  of,  156;  the  truth  about 
the,  451;  woman's  share  in  the, 
478,  489. 

War  of  principle;  the,  455. 

Wosak  Festival;  the,  63. 

What   the  wicked  are  doing,   387. 

What  we  ahall  Teach,  372, 

What   will   Christ  teach,    19. 

Wheel  of  Life;  the,  54. 

Whitsunday,    193. 

Whitsun;    derivation    of,    194. 

Why  Christ  will  come  soon,  45. 

Why  we  are  Christians,   35,  385. 


508 


The  Christian  Festivals 


Why   we   evolve,    69. 

Wicked  hymns,    18,   19. 

Widow's  mite;   the,   499. 

Wings  of  Angels,  265. 

Wisdom,   395,   397;   how  to  attain, 

369;    Masters   of  the,    350,    374; 

the  gospel  of,  375;  the  Spirit  of. 

113. 

Wise  Men;  the,  96;  the  three,  81. 
Wood;   ruler  of  the,   280. 
Working  towards  unity,   457. 
Working  against  unity,  458. 


Worship,  304;  definition  of,  229. 

Worth  His  while,   58. 

World;  a  changed,   52;   end  of  the, 

44;  the  Saviour  of,   142. 
World  Expectant;  A,  48. 
World   is   evolving;    the,    398,    404, 

460. 
World-Teacher;  the,  41. 

YAHWEH,    365,    404. 

ZOROASTER,  91. 
Zoroastrian  ceremony;   a,   176. 


THE    SCIENCE 
OF   THE    SACRAMENTS 

By 
CHARLES   W.    LEADBEATER 

Regionary  Bishop  of 
The  Liberal  Catholic  Church  for  Australasia 

550  pages  and  Index.  Frontispiece  in  Colours.  2 1  Diagrams.  27  Half-tone 
Plates.  Cloth,  crown  8vo.,  1 2/6.  Postage  :  Australia,  2d. ;  New 
Zealand.  7d. ;  Elsewhere.  I/ 1. 

This  volume  contains  a  clearly-worded  description  of  what  takes  place 
in  the  unseen  worlds  during  the  administration  of  the  sacraments  and  the 
services  of  the  Church.  The  information  given  cannot  be  obtained  else- 
where ;  it  is  absolutely  new  matter,  resulting  as  it  did  from  careful 
investigations  extended  over  a  period  of  three  years.  This  book  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  exact  science  of  Christian  ceremonial,  and  is  one  of 
the  notable  achievements  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  volume  is  pro- 
fusely illustrated  with  excellent  half-tones  and  carefully  drawn  diagrams, 
while  the  coloured  frontispiece  gives  a  vivid  idea  of  the  lovely  form 
produced  in  subtle  matter  during  the  celebration  of  the  Holy  Eucharist. 
The  chief  object  of  the  book  is  to  show  that  this  ceremony  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist  is  a  most  important  factor  in  a  great  Divine  plan  for  promoting 
the  evolution  of  the  world  by  the  frequent  outpouring  of  floods  of  spiritual 
force,  and  that  all  who  take  part  in  it  are  thereby  fellow  -  workers 
together  with  God,  even  though  they  may  be  all  unconscious  of  the  fact. 

Chapter.  Chapter  Headings. 

I.  A  New  Idea  of  Church   Worhip. 

II.  The  Holy  Eucharist. 

III.  Holy  Baptism  and  Confirmation. 

IV.  Holy  Orders. 

V.  The  Lesser  Sacraments. 

VI.  The  Church  Building. 

VII.  The  Altar  and  Its  Appurtenances. 

VIII.  The  Vestments. 

IX.  Vespers  and  Benediction  of  the  Most  Holy  Sacrament. 

X.  Occasional  Services. 
Appendix.     The  Soul  and  Its  Vestures. 

THE  ST.   ALBAN   PRESS 

4    Bridge    Street,    Sydney 
Addrew    all   letter.:    Box    1150,    G.P.O. 


THE   LITURGY 

according   to   the   use   of 

THE    LIBERAL    CATHOLIC    CHURCH 

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491   pages. 
Australia,  Id.:     New  Zealand,  3d.,     Elsewhere,  7d. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


The  Liberal  Catholic  Church  — 

General  Information. 
Preface. 
A  Table  of  all  the  Feasts  and  Holy 

Days. 
A  Table  of  the  Sundays  throughout 

the  Year. 
Rules  Governing   the    Precedence  of 

Feasts  and  Holy  Days. 
Rules  to  know  when  Moveable  Feasts 

occur. 

Notes  and  Directions. 
The  Collects,  Epistles  and  Gospels  to 

be  used  throughout  the  Year. 
The  Proper  Graduals  and  Prefaces  of 

the  Season. 
THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 

HOLY  EUCHARIST. 
The  Liturgy  of  the  Holy  Eucharist. 

Asperges. 

The  Holy  Eucharist. 
A  Shorter  Form  for  the  Celebration 

of  the  Holy  Eucharist. 
Form    for     the    Administration  of  j 

Holy  Communion. 
VESPERS. 
BENEDICTION  OF  THE  MOST 

HOLY  SACRAMENT. 
PRIME. 
COMPLIN. 
HOLY  BAPTISM  - 

Form  to  be  used  for  Infants. 

Form  to  be  used  for  Children. 

Form  to  be  used  for  Adults. 


CONFIRMATION. 

HOLY  MATRIMONY— 
The  Marriage  Service. 
The  Nuptial  Mass. 

CONFESSION  &•  ABSOLUTION. 

HOLY    UNCTION  AND    COM. 
MUNION  OF  THE  SICK— 
Procedure  "In  Extremis.'' 

THE  BUFMAL  OF  THE  DEAD— 
The  Burial. 
The  Requiem  Mass. 

HOLY  ORDERS  - 

The      Conferring    of      Minor 
Orders. 

The  Ordination  of  Subdeacons. 

The  Ordination  of  Deacons. 

The  Ordination  of  Priests. 

The  Consecration  of  a  Bishop. 
A  Form  of  Admission  to  the  Liberal 

Catholic  Church. 
The  Admission  of  a  Singer. 
The  Admission  of  a  Server. 

BLESSINGS— 

The  Blessing  of  Holy  Water. 
The     Blessing    of    Objects    in 

General, 

The  Blessing  of  a  House. 
The  Blessing  of  Holy  Oils. 

THE    CONSECRATION    OF    A 
CHURCH.j 

OCCASIONAL  PRAYERS. 


THE   ST.   ALBAN    PRESS 

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